


One Spectacle Grander

by lurkdusoleil



Category: Glee
Genre: Forced Marriage, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Merman Kurt, Winged Blaine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-23
Updated: 2013-09-23
Packaged: 2017-12-27 11:39:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/978446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lurkdusoleil/pseuds/lurkdusoleil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say that a bird cannot love a fish. But who are the nameless they, to define love?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The Eyrie is especially cold today. Blaine steps outside of his nest-house and stretches his wings, letting the wind ruffle the feathers and letting himself absorb the world around him.

His village is high up in a grouping of pillar cliffs, jutting out from a high shore. Below, waves from the sea crash around the base, the noise faint, the smell of salt strong even so high up. The sun is bright off the water, yellow over the hills behind him and the beach just barely in sight to his left, around the edge of some more cliffs.

The other nest-houses around him are still quiet--it’s early, yet, but Blaine wants to groom his feathers without Cooper interrupting him and maybe convince Brittany to come with him inland to trade with some of the land people. He wants a new wrap, and maybe some jewelry--he’s old enough to find a mate, now, and he has to make a good impression if he’s going to be visiting other Eyries or hosting other visitors that come through periodically on Flights--tours of the world, visits to family and friends in other Eyries, exploratory trips simply for experience, anything really, usually before one finds a mate, whether another of the Winged or, occasionally, one of the land folk.

He bounds up and flaps his wings, soaring up just enough to glide over to the center of the village--a common gathering place on the widest of the pillars, mostly taken up by a the Dome--a huge dome of woven, molded wood, hardened into a great web that arcs and winds up and down into the ground, providing perches all around the empty space at the center where they hold plays or meetings. He finds a perch toward the center, where the wind is weaker and the air a little warmer, and he sits down.

He brushes through the feathers on his lower legs, first. Long on his calves, to help guide and steer himself, tapering down to contour feathers around his shin and onto the tops of his feet. He combs these out with his fingers, straightening any that got shifted during sleep, stroking the barbs until they’re even and smooth.

He does the same on the feathers of his forearms and the backs of his hands before he starts combing through what he can reach of his wings and the feathers growing over his shoulders onto his clavicle and down the backs of his ribs. Any feathers that fall out, he carefully places in a pouch on the belt holding his wrap around his hips, for trading or, when he gets a few pretty ones, to bind into jewelry for his future mate. It’s a customary gift, and he wants to be sure that his mate gets the best of him.

He finishes what he can reach just in time for Brittany to come out from the nest-house that she shares with Sam and fly over to him.

“Are your feathers crooked on purpose?” she’d asked him, the first morning he’d moved out of his family’s nest and made his own, thus leaving him without his mother to help groom him. “Because they’re kind of pretty like that, but I like them better when the stripes match up.” After that, it had become ritual for her to help Blaine out every morning after she and Sam had woken and Sam had gone to scout around the Eyrie for changes or news.

“Are you planning on going on a Flight today?” she asks this morning, settling behind Blaine and carefully combing his feather, much gentler than he does himself, more meticulous, making sure the gold, brown, cream, and black stripings all match up. “You haven’t gone out yet.”

“I don’t know if I’m ready for a mate yet, Brittany,” Blaine admits. “I mean...I just finished my nest a few months ago. And the Eyries nearby only have a few boys of age that are available. We didn’t connect when they visited here, so...”

“Well, you can’t just wait here forever,” Brittany says. “There might be a pretty boy out there right now waiting for you to visit him, while you’re waiting for him to visit you. You should go find him before he decides to come find you, and then you’ll both be out and miss each other and fly right by.”

Blaine thinks for a moment, making sure he understood what she was saying, before he brushes it off.

“But what if I’m not meant to mate with another Winged?” Blaine asks softly, mind drifting. “You know there are stories about land mates.”

“Well, they can’t fly to see you,” Brittany says. “So you _have_ to go on a Flight to find them. Either way, you’re only staying here because you’re scared. And you shouldn’t be scared of love--it feels really good, trust me.”

Blaine smiles and takes her hand when she finishes up and sits next to him, her pretty blue-feathered feet swinging below where she sits.

“I’ll think about it,” Blaine says. “I should probably figure out what direction I want to go in.”

“I just went toward something shiny,” Brittany notes with a shrug. “I saw a flash over the cliffs, and I went toward it, and Sam was on the other side near that lake. Worked for me.”

Blaine smiles softly.

“I’ll keep an eye out for something shiny, then.”

\--

The problem, later that day, is that _everything_ is shiny.

He, Brittany, Sam, Cooper, and Joe, a youngling just about to reach his mating age, are on the beach, searching out shells to bring to trade when they visit the inland villages, or maybe fish if the water clears up--there was a storm, out to sea, Sam had said earlier, discovered on his scouting trip, and the water is still more turbulent than usual. It washed up a ton of shells, though, and some sea glass, so the early afternoon sun is glinting in every angle, and if Blaine tried to fly toward anything shiny now, he’d just spin in circles.

“I think we should go further down the beach,” Sam suggests at one point. “Who knows what else washed up. We’re not going to get much for some glass and shells.”

“What’s different about further down the beach?” Cooper protested. “If you want something different, get closer to the storm. We should look in the caves--”

“We don’t go in the caves, Cooper,” Sam interrupts. “The waves are too unpredictable--you never know if one could fill up--”

“I’m a fast enough flier, I could go in and out before you missed me--”

“Maybe we could find--”

“What’s that?”

Brittany is the one who asks. She often sees things of interest to her, things that aren’t as interesting to the rest of the world, so Cooper ignores her completely. Joe looks to Sam, who just shrugs, looking at Brittany instead of following her gaze.

But Blaine does follow her gaze, and his ears seem to fill with the roar of the sea, drowning out the voices of the others as the light flashes off of something and into his eyes, silver and shimmering.

“--wearing a dress?” Cooper’s voice filters back in as Blaine stares.

“It’s a merman,” Brittany breathes in his ear. “I knew they were real.”

Blaine’s brow furrows. They live above the sea--if anyone would have seen one of the mythical sea people, it would’ve been them. They often fished and flew over the water, daring each other to get closer despite how the salt of the water could destroy their feathers and make them ill if they got too saturated. Blaine’s been doing it for years, and he’s good at it--but he’s never seen any fish people below the surface, not even on the calmest, clearest days, when the water shimmers almost crystalline down to the rocky, sandy floors before the dropoff to deeper waters.

But there he is.

Before he knows what he’s doing, before he can think twice, Blaine takes off, flying over quickly, landing on a grouping of rocks partially hiding the form from view.

There he is.

He’s so pale that the sun reflects enough to make Blaine squint. He’s gorgeous and lithe from the waist up--broad-shouldered, trim-waisted, veins running down his shoulders and shapely arms blue and thick. His hair is reddish brown in the light, swept up off his angled, graceful face, framed by a braid at each temple that’s about as thick as Blaine’s pinky. He’s wearing several strands of beads and shells and other decorations around his neck, and otherwise bare.

And below his hips, scales form from the skin, pale and nacreous like the smooth insides of some of the most precious shells Blaine collects. He doesn’t have legs--just this one long tail, sinuous and limp on the sand. It tapers and ends with long, gossamer fins.

Blaine looks over at the water--the sun is just past its zenith, and the tide is at its lowest. The edge of the surf is many yards away, so Blaine feels safe enough hopping down onto the sand to get a closer look.

The fish-man is unconscious. His eyes are shut, flickering restlessly and scrunched tight--in pain, or because of the light in his eyes, Blaine’s not sure. Gills behind his strong jaw flutter weakly, though he breathes through his chapped lips, shallow and unsteady. His skin is flushed and starting to burn, and--

Blaine sniffs. He smells blood.

He looks the man over, suddenly much more nervous. And there, on his far side, a stain of red on the sand, below a deep wound in the scales over what Blaine estimates would be his outer thigh, if he had legs. The scales around it are torn, and Blaine almost gags--it’s a large wound, and he’s no longer surprised that the fishman is laying here passed out.

“Blaine! Come back here!”

Blaine shakes his head at Cooper’s call, shouting back, “He’s hurt!” He kneels and leans over him, hands hovering uncertainly before they land on the merman’s shoulders, shaking gently.

“Hello?” he asks, feeling stupid. “Can you--can you wake up?”

He’s not surprised when it doesn’t work. The fishman doesn’t even stir. Blaine sits back on his haunches, looking at him helplessly, at a loss. He can’t carry the fishman back to the water--for one thing, he doesn’t know if he’ll wake up or just sink, and secondly, if his feathers get in the seawater, he’ll be kept to the Eyrie for days while he washes the salt out, and some of his feathers will never be the same again. He can’t risk it, carrying this creature’s weight.

But maybe he can do something. The poor man’s lips are chapped, and he’s probably overheated without cool water around him. Blaine can at least get him a drink.

He jumps up and casts around for something to carry it in. Then, rolling his eyes at himself, he reaches into his pouch for an abalone shell he’d found earlier. Just about the size of his palm, it’s not very good quality--the ripples of color on the inside are cracked and stained dark, and it’s not very deep. But it’ll do for getting a drink of water for a merman.

Blaine rushes down to the water, ignoring the cries of his friends behind him, still at a distance, probably afraid to approach. Blaine doesn’t think about why--about the danger that could be present in this situation. But Blaine is one of the Winged, not a canary--he doesn’t fly away at the first sign of something new, not when someone is in need of help.

He cautiously leans forward to lay the shell on the sand, allowing the waves to slip up and fill it. When it’s done, he jogs back, careful to keep it level, only spilling a few drops. When he reaches the merman, he kneels down and gingerly lays the edge of the shell on his lips.

He tips it. The water pours messily over his lips, but some goes into his mouth, and before the water is gone, the merman stirs.

“Hello?” Blaine asks, pulling back the shell, with a shallow pool of water at the bottom. The man needs to _talk_ \-- “Are you awake?”

The man groans, his head tossing faintly, and Blaine feels his hand twitching against his own calf, unsettling a few feathers. He pulls back, and the hand rises weakly.

“ _Wa_ \--”

“Water?” Blaine asks. He tips the shell back without waiting for an answer, but the trickle of water that heads to the fish man’s mouth is not nearly enough. “Oh! I--I can get more. Stay here.”

Blaine runs back to the water, hoping the merman doesn’t remember that when he wakes-- _stay here_ , honestly--and gets more into the shell, hurrying back and feeding it to him again.

By the fourth shell, the merman is assisting Blaine in tipping in the water, dry, pale hands joining Blaine’s on the shell to drink faster, more, his head tilted up to sip greedily. When he finishes that, he coughs weakly.

“Thank you,” he says, opening eyes that almost match his scales--mostly blue, but flashing with slivers of silver and green and gold.

“You’re welcome,” Blaine replies, excited that they speak the same language. “Do you--do you want more?”

“In a moment,” is the response, gritty and suspicious. “Where am I?”

“Um...you’re on a beach,” Blaine says, and is impressed with the way the merman can glare at him, in his state.

“Yes, thank you.” He clears his throat, and his voice comes back a little stronger, a little clearer. “Who are you?”

Blaine shifts, out of his element and nervous with the urge to fly. But he’d promised himself he’d stay here and not flee like his smaller, weaker cousins.

“I’m Blaine,” he says.

The merman looks him over for a minute, his jaw twitching, tense, before he replies.

“Kurt.”


	2. Chapter 2

Blaine smiles.

“Are you--you’re a bird man,” Kurt says, looking him over, wiggling and wincing until he’s half-propped on his elbows. “Do you live on the cliffs?”

“Yes,” Blaine says, surprised. “You--you know about us?”

“Of course.” Kurt looks him over. “You fly above the water there sometimes, so we see you.”

“But--but we’ve never seen _you_ ,” Blaine says. “And we’ve looked--we thought you were just a story.”

Kurt half-smiles, as though amused, before he grimaces.

“Do you need more water?” Blaine asks.

Kurt seems to consider.

“It would help,” he replies, after a moment. “I have to be strong enough to get back to the water, but drinking can only give me so much help.”

“Should I--should I pour it on you?”

“No,” Kurt replies, sounding irritated. “I’d need a lot more than you can carry in a shell. What I need is a Healer.”

“I don’t think the healers of my village would know how to treat a fish man.”

“I am not a fish,” Kurt snaps. He closes his mouth and sighs after he does it, closing his eyes, his face softening. “I’m sorry--I...this is not a situation in which I wish to find myself.”

“I understand,” Blaine says. “I wish I could help more, but if I carried you into the water, my feathers would be ruined. I could bring you to the edge, though, maybe help--”

“No, don’t risk it,” Kurt interrupts. “I know how your kind is affected by the salt. We’ve found some of you in the caves before.”

Blaine wants to ask about the caves, wants to discover something he and Kurt have in common, but now is probably not the time.

“What can I do?”

“If you could give me just a little bit more water, I could probably call my friends. If I’m missing, they’ll be looking.”

“Sure.”

Blaine gets him two shells before Kurt clears his throat again, and then his voice comes out, high and clear and sweet.

“Thank you,” he says.

“So you can...just call your friends?” Blaine chooses to ask, from the multitude of questions he has.

“Hopefully they can hear me,” Kurt murmurs, staring out at the sea. “I might not be close enough. Can you hold on? I can’t be distracted while I’m doing it.”

“Oh, yeah,” Blaine says, stepping back and sitting down meekly, just to the side. Kurt gives him a little smile and then adjusts himself until he’s sitting up entirely, leaning forward just a bit, leaning heavily on his uninjured side.

And then he starts to sing.

Blaine can sing--his entire eyrie sings, it’s part of how they communicate. It’s easier to hear a clear note through the air than a strained shout, and they can communicate with their lesser bird brethren as well, through their songs.

Now, he’s seeing a _fish_ singing.

His song is beautiful. His voice is ethereal, light but strong, and Blaine’s never heard anything like it. If Kurt were a Winged, he’d be the envy of the flock. Blaine watches, mesmerized, hypnotized by a strange language and haunting tones floating toward the sea. Blaine blinks back tears when he stops, lowering his head and breathing deep to control himself, only to gasp and snap his head up as a chorus returns, faint but clear.

“They’re coming,” Kurt sighs in relief, lying back. “They’ll be able to get me at the next high tide.”

“That’s not for hours, though,” Blaine says. He looks out at the water, the sun still high over it. Sunset will not come for several hours at this time of year, just after the spring equinox. And the tide comes with the sunset, here.

“Then I’ll wait.”

Blaine blinks down at him, at his grim determination, and is filled with admiration and pity in equal turns. He smiles at Kurt, who just stares back.

“I’ll wait with you,” he declares. Kurt’s eyes narrow at him.

“Why?”

“To make sure you’re okay,” Blaine says. “And I can get more water for you if you need it.”

“Well. In that case. Could you do...one more thing for me, Blaine?”

“Anything,” Blaine says, and Kurt bites his lip against a smile.

“Could you grab some seaweed from the edge of the rocks? I can put it on my wound, keep it wet. And maybe the salt can clean it out a little bit.”

“Sure,” Blaine says. He hops down to some rocks further down the beach, keeping as well balanced as he can as they get wetter and wetter, finally snagging up some moist, slimy seaweed from where it drifted up with the last tide. He hurries back, stumbling once or twice, before he hands it to Kurt, who lays it on the wound with a wince before nodding at Blaine.

“Thank you for your help, Blaine.”

Blaine smiles, but it fades when he realizes that he can still hear the others down the beach. He stands, startling Kurt, and he winces apologetically.

“Hold on, just...one second.”

Blaine crouches a bit and takes off, flapping his wings until he gets a good wind beneath him. He glides over to his flock, who are still where he left them, half-heartedly flying and playing with each other as they furtively look over to where Kurt lies near the rocks. He drops to the ground and jogs the last few feet, smiling faintly at their curious looks.

“Did you help the pretty merman?” Brittany asks.

“I did,” Blaine nods. “His name is Kurt, and his friends are going to come get him when the tide comes in.”

“He’ll be here a while,” Cooper says. “It’s just past low tide now.”

“I know,” Blaine says. “I’m going to wait with him. Head back to the Eyrie? I should be back shortly after sunset, if the high tide is on time.”

“You sure about this, squirt?”

“Yes,” Blaine assures. “And don’t call me squirt.”

“All right,” Cooper says, and then his smile turns mischievous. “Go play with your pretty fish.”

Before Blaine can come up with a retort, Cooper turns and flies off, the rest of the flock following him. Blaine blushes--Cooper knows him too well.

And Kurt really is pretty.

He turns back, seeing Kurt looking over at him, one hand over his brow to block out the sun. And then Blaine realizes--Kurt probably almost never even sees the sun, and he might be feeling a little better from the sea water and whatever merman magic he has to be so resilient, but he can still burn, and he’s so _pale_.

Blaine flies over, and then climbs up to a jut of rock near the bottom of Kurt’s fin, crouching on it as comfortably as he can. His body blocks out most of the light, but when he spreads his wings, allowing the warmth to seep into the feathers, Kurt is totally shaded.

“There,” Blaine says. “How does that feel?”

“Thank you,” Kurt says sincerely, smiling sincerely up at Blaine and letting his eyes rove over Blaine’s feathers. “You have no idea how strong the sun is directly in my eyes like that.”

“Do you ever come to the surface?”

“Not often,” Kurt says. “When we do, it’s usually in caves and inlets, and at night. We’re pretty sensitive to the sun, as you see by how dried out I am. And it’s darker down where I live.”

“How do you see at all?”

“We have lamps,” Kurt explains. “There are fish, down at the lowest floors of the sea, and they have lights on their heads. Our shamans learned to harvest that light and put it in balls of sea glass, and they light our cities. And our eyes are adjusted to it.”

“I wish I could see it,” Blaine says earnestly. Then, remembering, “Do you ever bring those lights into the caves?

“Sometimes, in the lower ones,” Kurt says. “They rise up in little pockets underneath the cliffs.”

“I used to play in the caves as a child, before our elders banned us from going in. I wish I’d seen you.”

Kurt looks at him for a long moment before he speaks again.

“You know, sometimes my friends and I race around the pillars. We start off in the caves, and the first person to get out and circle all the rocks wins.”

“Is...is that how you ended up here?” Blaine asks tentatively, not wanting to embarrass Kurt or pry, but he can’t help but be curious.

Kurt sighs, looking ashamed.

“Not...exactly,” Kurt says hesitantly. “I...kind of...swamintoareef.”

“You swam into a...reef?”

“I got this from some coral,” Kurt confirms, pointing to his gash. “I was...practicing. It’s almost time to choose my path, and I was thinking about being a Caller.”

“What’s a Caller?” Blaine asks.

“I’d basically be a--I’m not sure of the word,” Kurt muses. “Callers swim across the ocean, meeting new people, checking in with different settlements, finding new paths for our Seekers. I have a strong voice, so it was this or becoming a Shaman, but my magic is almost nonexistent. But Callers have to be able to swim through all sorts of different waters. Evidently, I’m not there yet. The water pulled me into the reef, and the last thing I remember is heading for the coral before waking up on the shore, in the sun. And there you were.”

Kurt looks so embarrassed. Blaine takes pity.

“When I was first learning to fly, I got stuck in a tree,” he offers. “My older brother Cooper had to pull me down. Probably the worst person to do it, too, he still teases me about it sometimes.”

“How long as has it been?” Kurt asks.

“...Fourteen years?”

“And he still teases you?”

“It...may have happened on more than one occasion,” Blaine says. “I’m a good flier--one of the best--but sometimes a gust comes out of nowhere, or I get...distracted...”

Kurt chuckles, hiding his mouth behind his hand and peeking up at Blaine bashfully. He’s adorable, and Blaine just grins down at him, sharing the joke with him.

Blaine realizes that the light is falling, and he glances back. The sun is heading down, fainter in the late afternoon and now a bit off to the side, out of Kurt’s eyes, so he folds his wings back up and sits down, settling himself next to Kurt.

“So, Kurt...tell me more about life under the sea.”

“Oh, I will,” Kurt says, and it sounds like flirting. Blaine blushes, unable to stop smiling. “But only if you tell me about life in the clouds.”

“Deal.”

\--

Blaine is yawning and Kurt is getting sick with prolonged pain when the water rises to lap at Blaine’s feet. Blaine hops up and backs up, nervous of the damage it could do to him, shooting Kurt an apologetic look.

“Sorry,” he says.

“Don’t be,” Kurt replies. “I didn’t apologize for washing up on shore, did I?”

“You shouldn’t have had to.”

“Exactly.” Kurt looks smug, and Blaine shakes his head.

“Fine. I’m not sorry.”

He wants to continue talking, wants to learn more--more about Kurt’s life, the way his villages look, what his people do. But then a song rises up in the cool air, much closer than the one earlier. Kurt’s face lights up in a grin.

“I can go home,” he says. “My friends are here. As soon as the water is high enough for them to get close enough--”

“I--”

Kurt looks up at Blaine, and Blaine stops, unsure of what he really wants to say. He’s enjoyed this afternoon and evening with Kurt--he’s funny and smart and they have a surprising number of similarities. He wishes they didn’t have to say goodbye--the very thought of it wrenches in his chest, draws away his smile, and fills him with regret and sadness.

“You said you can’t go into the caves?”

Blaine stares down at Kurt.

“Well--no, the Elders don’t like it. People have died--”

“Are you afraid of them?”

“No,” Blaine says. “I used to fly into them all the time with Cooper, when we were kids. The water’s gotten worse since then, but I know I could fly out in time if they started to fill--”

“And I know the sea better than you,” Kurt adds. “I’d know if it was coming, I can feel changes in the water. I could warn you to leave in time.”

“Kurt, what are you saying--”

“Would you meet me in the caves? I--I understand if you don’t want to, but I--”

“I do,” Blaine cuts in. “I want to see you again.”

Kurt’s smile is stunning, wide and happy and he looks so young and beautiful--

“Three days,” Kurt says, as the water starts surrounding him. “Three days, and I should be able to swim on my own again. At morning high tide, I’ll swim into the largest cave, on the western side--”

“I think I know it,” Blaine says. “The one with the pillar in the center?”

“Yes,” Kurt replies, speaking faster, looking at the water frantically, twisting back around to look at Blaine behind him. “I’ll be there. Morning high tide. Can you be there?”

“I’ll come as soon as I’m able,” Blaine says. Impulsively, he reaches out his hand, palm up, smiling into Kurt’s eyes when he takes it. “I’ll see you then.”

“Til then.”

Blaine squeezes his hand once, and then it slips away as Kurt flips onto his stomach and is pulled away by shapes in the foamy water, his face a hopeful question as he sinks from sight.

And then Blaine is alone, his hand still outstretched, sea songs floating from the water to surround him.


	3. Chapter 3

The next few days are long. Blaine rejects Brittany’s offers to go on Flights to meet boys who don’t live under water, again and again, and avoids questions on the topic from his family. Instead, he whiles away his time gliding lazily above the sea, watching for movement under the waves. He catches glimpses of the light reflecting off of smooth shells and sand-worn rocks, but nothing shines the way Kurt did that day.

When he finally returns home, it’s to eye-rolling from Cooper, and grumbling from some of the others that he’s wasting his time on a fantasy.

“Why don’t you go to some of the land villages?” Sam suggests on the second day. “I know that boy at the market stall with the dried fruits was looking at you. You could always--”

“No, that’s okay,” Blaine interrupts. “I just...I’ll know when it’s right, Sam. I don’t want to chase a maybe.”

Sam doesn’t say anything more, though by the set of his mouth, he wants to. Blaine appreciates his silence, though, and the silence of the rest of the group. They don’t tell anyone about what happened, and they don’t approach him about it. He can just...live in this moment. He’s not ready to give up the dreams he’s been having, the impossibilities.

On the third day he wakes up much earlier than he intends to, excited and nervous, and can’t get back to sleep. He spends longer than usual grooming his feathers, trying to look his best without Brittany’s help, too impatient to wait for her to wake up. In his haste, he tugs out several feathers that needn’t have been lost, but he tucks them away in his pouch anyway, thinking of how he can tie them up and decorate them to make the prettiest offerings. But he can’t just sit there waiting anymore, and eventually he takes off and flies to the cave with the pillar, to wait for Kurt there.

The trip down is slick and quiet, only his breathing and occasional grunts of effort bouncing off the stone walls of the tunnel down. He keeps his wings tucked in tightly, and goes by the faint light streaming in from the outside, darker and darker as he descends.

When he arrives, he can barely see. He finds and sits on a stone ledge, every now and then backing away from the edge of the water as it rises with the tide lapping at his toes. It’s pleasantly cool inside the cave, sheltered as it is from the sun, and every little noise of the lapping water and the shuffling of his wings echoes around the chamber, filling the space with sound.

“Hello?” he calls to no one, and his voice reflects back a dozen times, softer and softer. _Hello_. He smiles at the way it sounds so big and musical. He sings a long, clear note, and the vibrations come from everywhere, from all corners of the cave, filling his chest with tremors.

He invents a melody, and sings out loud, wordlessly, enjoying the fullness of the sound. He likes his own voice, knows that it’s an asset to his family and his Eyrie. It’s strong and clear, and that’s important during flight. But mostly, he just enjoys singing for the beauty of it. So he lets himself hum and sing and play with the notes, to bide his time.

But then he jumps, startled by a watery harmony joining him from the sea. He laughs, and then keeps singing as the swelling, swirling voice gets closer and louder until Kurt’s head emerges from the water and the notes become clear and bright in the air. Kurt smiles excitedly up at him and uses his arms to pull himself closer, laying half out of the water on the rocks. “I didn’t know you could sing!”

“All birds sing,” Blaine teases, and Kurt raises an eyebrow at him.

“You’re telling me crows sing?”

“I didn’t say they were good at it.”

Kurt laughs, a surprisingly full sound, wild with abandon, and Blaine grins. He’d expected something elegant and tinkling, but this laugh, the laugh of a carefree young man, is so much better.

“Can you see in here?” Kurt asks suddenly. “It’s fine for me, but I thought you might bring a torch or something, for someone who’s used to the sun.”

“I didn’t think of it,” Blaine admits. “I can sort of see--my eyes are used to it now--”

“Hold on,” Kurt says, and he dives down beneath the water.

He’s gone for several minutes, and Blaine is antsy for most of it, wondering where he’s gone, worrying. But then a light shines in the water, growing bigger and brighter until Kurt emerges, holding a bauble on a thread.

“Light,” he says, holding it up.

Blaine takes it from him, and is surprised--it’s warm. Not hot, like the flames his people use, but just pleasantly warm on his hands. It’s a cool blue-green light, not strong, but it lights up around them well enough. Blaine’s grateful for it--there’s not much to see in the cave, just rocks and water, but he can see Kurt so much better, captured by the shadows in his cheeks and eyes, in the dip of his collar and the curve of his jaw.

“Thank you,” Blaine says sincerely. “Does this...will it last, out of water?”

“Not for too long,” Kurt explains, “but if we dip it back under once in a while, it should be okay.”

“So...if I put it in a tank of water, it would stay lit.”

“No,” Kurt says, a little regretfully. “If it’s taken out of the sea for too long, it loses its connection with our Shamans’ magic. It has to be connected through the water. If it’s in different water, it can’t stay lit.”

“That’s too bad,” Blaine murmurs. “It’s beautiful.”

“Were you thinking of showing it to your people?”

Blaine bites his lip, but he nods.

“There are reasons we don’t come up to the surface much, Blaine,” Kurt says sadly. “My people...they don’t really need anything from the surface. So much up here wouldn’t survive down there, and I think the same is true in reverse. And we’re tied to the sea.”

Blaine frowns, unsure of how to reply. He knew the whole time that his fascination with Kurt, his deep desire to spend time with him, would be a doomed endeavor. They were so ill matched, and the only place they could ever be together would be in this cave. Neither of them would survive it. Kurt is smart enough to know that--Blaine has been fooling himself. Maybe that’s the reason they’re here--maybe Kurt just wanted to say goodbye--

Kurt’s hands join his on the bright bauble. Blaine gasps at the contact.

“That doesn’t mean we don’t _want_ anything from the surface.”

Blaine looks up at him, the light shining between them. Kurt’s hands are strong, cool, smooth against his own. Blaine notices an almost transparent web between his fingers, and it feels strange against his dry, warm skin.

They’re so different. _Too_ different.

But Kurt is looking right at him, into his eyes, and he wonders if this is what Brittany meant when she said not to be afraid of love.

“I wish I could swim,” he whispers.

“Don’t,” Kurt says sternly, pulling his hands away. “Swimming could kill you, don’t think I don’t know that. It would be better if you wished you could always fly.”

Blaine’s heart drops. Kurt--

“I wish that _I_ could fly. It’s...” He pauses, looking frustrated. “What do your stories tell you about merpeople?”

“Not much,” Blaine admits. “We’ve mostly heard stories about beautiful fish people that sing to sailors, luring them to the rocks. They live beneath the waves in grand palaces, feasting on their hearts.”

Kurt laughs bitterly.

“My people mostly live in underwater caves,” Kurt says. “Not much construction can be done beneath the water. We can carve and form sea glass, build with stones and sand, sometimes with debris from shipwrecks. And any song that a sailor hears, he hears on accident, and it is not our fault if he chases us and dies in the process. We mostly eat fish--which we are _not_.”

“I’m sorry,” Blaine says at the tone of Kurt’s voice, dry and irritated. “I didn’t know--”

“What do your people think about love, Blaine?” Kurt asks, as though Blaine had not spoken.

Blaine pauses, confused. “Love?”

“Yes. Are there rules about who you can love?”

“Of course not,” Blaine says. “I mean...there are _some_ things that are frowned upon. What do you mean?”

“I mean...are you allowed to love who you want? Even if...even if they’re male?”

“Yes,” Blaine says. “I...I actually prefer males. I--thought you’d guessed.”

Kurt smiles at him gently.

“I did. But...one never knows.”

Blaine frowns at Kurt, settling closer to him. “What about your people?”

“My own people shun me because I have no desire to procreate,” Kurt continues. “I do not want to love a woman. But I’ll end up with my friend Santana, I’m sure, because she has no desire to love a man. We’ll have children we don’t want to make together, but at least we won’t expect more from the other.”

“Why can’t you love a man?” Blaine asks, confused.

“There aren’t many of us,” Kurt explains. “It’s far more dangerous in the sea than I think you realize. Not just because of the predators, or the ways you can get caught or injured in the pulls of the water. But my people have wars with each other--over territory, over resources. It is far from paradise. The gods say we must provide children for our race, populate the oceans with our spawn so that they can continue to kill each other.”

“That’s terrible,” Blaine blurts.

“You see why it might be troublesome for us,” Kurt acknowledges. “There is a small group that supports the way Santana and I are--our... _abnormalities_. My friends that came yesterday, and my father, and one of the Shamans. That’s it. Less than ten people overall, in a tribe of over five hundred. The rest would rather see us killed than see us love who we would. The rest have tried to change me my whole life, tried to intimidate and scare me into being just like them.”

Blaine sets the light between a couple of smaller rocks, reaches down, and takes Kurt’s hand. He can’t twine their fingers as he would wish, but he cups it in his as best as he can, brushing the back of Kurt’s hand with his own.

“So you see why it might be...appealing for me to come to your world,” Kurt continues. “A place where I am free to love anyone I choose. A place where I am not shoved into rocks and my fin isn’t pulled and I’m not shamed for wanting to choose a mate I love rather than being forced to be with one who can provide children. A place with beautiful people who play on the beach and sing songs for joy and only ban something to protect lives. People who want to show each other a light because it’s pretty, who want to share it.”

“You...think we’re beautiful?” Blaine asks, before he can stop himself.

Kurt’s face flushes, and Blaine can’t help but smile at it. He looks more alive than Blaine’s seen him look so far.

“I’ve never seen anyone like you,” he says, and Blaine gets the feeling Kurt’s not talking about his species anymore. “The moment I did, I wanted to...to know you.”

“I wanted to know you, too,” Blaine replies. “My people aren’t perfect...they were nervous of you. They didn’t want me to go over. But...I couldn’t leave you to die there.”

“Thank you,” Kurt whispers.

They look at each other for a long moment, the air suspended between them, and then a wave crashes over Blaine’s toes and he scrambles back. The spell is broken, and the next time he looks at Kurt, Kurt is looking away.

“Are you--how are you feeling?” he asks, curling up on himself, hugging his knees to his chest.

Kurt looks back up and smiles again before hopping out of the water, turning so he can sit on the edge of the same rock as Blaine, the end of his tail trailing in the water. Blaine scoots back down, grinning sheepishly before he notices the side of Kurt’s fin where he’d been injured--it’s perfect. As though there had never been a wound.

“That’s--how--”

“Our Shamans are very good,” Kurt says, running his hand over the flawless scales with one hand, tucking up his braids behind his ears with the other. “It took a day or two of rest, but I’m all better. Scared of coral reefs, now, too.”

Blaine laughs at the wry, self-deprecating comment, unable to stop grinning when Kurt smiles right back at him.

“A--a few of your feathers are crooked,” Kurt notes. “On your wing?”

Blaine looks around, but he can’t see where they might be. But when he spreads his wings, he catches the spot he’d missed. Several feathers are clumped together, leaving gaps on either side, the barbs slightly bent and sticking out. Blaine reaches back awkwardly to comb through them, straightening them as best he can--they’re at an awkward spot, and he suddenly wishes he’d waited for Brittany despite questions it could’ve caused when he took off toward the caves.

“I’ll just--”

“I could help?” Kurt offers, reaching out a hand tentatively. “I’m--I’m dry, I don’t have any salt on my hands.”

Blaine blinks for a moment. It’s kind of... _intimate_ , touching his body like that. He allows Brittany because she’s his friend, and he allowed his mother of course, but it’s kind of like letting someone run their fingers through his hair--it’s a close gesture. But Kurt is offering, and Blaine trusts his instincts. And all they’re saying is that he wants Kurt closer to him, no matter what.

“Okay.” Kurt shifts up the rock a little awkwardly, turning and curling up his fin to steady himself before reaching out and brushing the tips of his fingers through the feathers.

Blaine shivers. Kurt can’t put much pressure on them, with the webs between his fingers--he can only use the tips. And the touch is so light, it’s on the edge of ticklish.

“Am I doing it wrong?”

“No,” Blaine says instantly. “No, you’re fine. Just--you can touch a little harder? It’s kind of...sensitive, so it can tickle.”

Kurt immediately presses harder, brushing the feathers back into place, using the others to guide where he lines them up. Just as he’s finishing up, though, a feather falls out--a downy feather, from the undercoat, just a soft little thing with wispy barbs.

“Oh no!” Kurt gasps. “I’m sorry--did I hurt you?”

“No, it’s fine,” Blaine says, picking the feather off the rock and holding it up. “It’s fine. They fall out sometimes--you should see when we go through our molting cycle, feathers _everywhere_. It’s just like plucking out a hair, with these little ones. Sometimes the bigger ones can hurt, though, if they’re pulled before they’re really to fall out.”

“It’s cute,” Kurt says, peering at the little thing. Blaine smiles and hands it over.

“You can have it,” he says. “Only the bigger ones are really valuable or mean anything.”

“Valuable?” Kurt asks. “You mean...you sell them?”

“Sure, sometimes,” Blaine says. “I collect the best of each kind for myself, though. When we find a mate, it’s customary to give them jewelry with your best feathers on them. Like...giving them a part of yourself. The best parts. Because they deserve it.”

“You...have you found a mate yet?”

Kurt sounds so nervous, his fingers tentative as he takes the downy feather. Blaine can’t help but smile at that. Kurt doesn’t _want_ him to have a mate?

“No,” Blaine says. “I just built my nest recently, meaning I’m of age now. And...I’ve met some boys, but I didn’t really connect with them. I’m told it’s obvious, when I find my mate. The love is instinctive, like I was born for that person.”

He doesn’t say that he’s pretty sure that’s the feeling of being drawn to Kurt. And not even because they just met--his people choose a mate within days of meeting them, sometimes, if the feeling is strong enough. No, it’s because of what Kurt is, what _he_ is. He can’t mate with someone whose home would kill him, and with someone who would die in _his_ home.

He won’t kill them both with his love.

“I should go back,” Blaine says, his voice stilted. His heart aches when he says it, when he thinks of leaving Kurt. “My...my family and friends will be wondering where I am.”

“It’s good they care,” Kurt replies wistfully, stroking the feather, smiling sadly down at it. Blaine hesitantly lays his hand on Kurt’s back, stroking the cool, smooth skin. It feels like glass, and Blaine has a strong image of Kurt gliding through the water, the streams parting around his form like around a knife, unable to resist his push and so ready to change their flow for him. God of waters and of pushing until he gets where he wants, this beautiful finned warrior; warrior of self, warrior of truth.

Blaine wants to compose songs to him. The kind that Cooper would hurt his sides laughing at. And he doesn’t even care. He’ll have a chorus of blackbirds join him in serenading Kurt if it’ll do something to show Kurt that someone cares, even if it’s just a bird.

“Can I see you again?” Blaine asks, unsure. But Kurt’s face lights up, even as he holds back a smile with a bite of his teeth into his bottom lip.

“I suppose that could be arranged,” he replies, flirty and sweet, slipping back into the water. “When?”

“Tomorrow,” Blaine says, not wanting to delay longer. “Do you need to be in here at high tide, or can we wait til low tide? I might be expected to be around first thing in the morning. It’d be less suspicious.”

Kurt looks like he wants to ask questions, but he shakes his head briefly.

“I can come in at low tide,” Kurt says. “It just makes it a little easier to come this close to shore on high tide. Low tide presses outwards. But I can do it.”

Blaine takes the bauble of light and hands it down to Kurt, smiling.

“Then I’ll see you tomorrow. Just after the midday tide.”

Kurt puts the light beneath the water, and it glows brighter again. Blaine hadn’t noticed it dimming.

“Til tomorrow.”


	4. Chapter 4

Weeks pass in this manner. They meet at one of the tides, lighting the cave with more and more baubles that Kurt brings with him each time. And every time, Blaine gives him a little feather in return--a downy one, so that he can save the others and not be mistaken--if anyone found out he’d given one of his beautiful decorative feathers to someone, there would be questions. Those are supposed to be for a mate if they aren’t sold.

Not that he doesn’t want to give Kurt his feathers, want to make him an offering and ask him to be his mate. Kurt is everything he’s ever wanted--he’s funny and whip-smart, so beautiful and he loves to sing. He’s playful, too--he and Blaine often race, seeing if Kurt can swim to the bottom of the cave beneath the water and back before Blaine can fly to the roof of the cave and land again. They laugh and sing while tying up the lights across the cave, finding new and inventive ways to attach them in places that they can easily be put back in the water to refresh them. They harmonize and play with the echoes, making up songs and singing songs that they learned from their people, sharing and learning and changing.

Kurt in particular seems eager to learn, and asks a lot of questions.

“What do you do in your village?”

“The Eyrie doesn’t really have...specific jobs, like your people seem to,” Blaine explains. “We don’t have titles, and we aren’t restricted to one thing. We all know each other’s talents, and we work with them. I’m a good singer--my voice carries well. So I can call messages while we’re flying, or sing birdsongs and communicate with lesser birds. My friend Brittany moves like no one I’ve ever seen--she can fly all kinds of patterns, and she dances when we have festivals or join the land folk for theirs. My friend Sam--Brittany’s mate--is a great scout, he sees things others don’t.” “What about your brother?” Blaine laughs, not without a little bit of resentment.

“I think Cooper just wants to breed. He might as well be a peacock with the way he struts.”

“He doesn’t have a mate?”

“No, but not like that would stop him,” Blaine comments. Kurt raises his eyebrows, and Blaine adds, “I’m sure he’ll be one of those who takes more than one mate. It’s not really common, but it happens. Sometimes people just connect. I think Cooper will connect with anyone who gives him the attention, though. He’s already turned down several mating offers. If he ever does settle down, I’m sure he’ll either need a mate who is capable of keeping him on his toes, or several mates to keep his life interesting.”

“I can’t imagine that,” Kurt says. “Loving more than one person like that. My people... _mate_ for life, and once you’re wed that’s it. My mother died when I was young, and despite the fact that my father could have found plenty of companionship in the years since, it would be frowned upon if he took another wife.”

“I thought your people wanted more children. Why would they deny a partnership that could produce them?”

Kurt frowns.

“My people’s religion says that it’s because the souls of people united become one, and can’t join with another once the...the pieces of the puzzle connect. But I’ve never really believed in religion. I think it’s because sometimes people are forced to marry before they’re ready, before they’ve found someone they _want_ to join with. If they’re getting too old, or if their union is arranged between families. Santana and I will join because we have no other option--we aren’t allowed to love who we want. It would be all too tempting to find some way to dissolve the union for someone in this situation, wouldn’t it?”

“I suppose,” Blaine agrees.

“Well, like I said...it’s for life. So I wouldn’t be surprised if, at one time, someone thought they could get away with murdering their mate so that they could be with someone else. Or running away, or any number of things.”

“Why can’t they run away?” Blaine asks. “Aren’t there people far enough away that they wouldn’t know?”

“That’s why we’re marked in the joining ceremony,” Kurt says. “Matching brands. It’s the job of the female’s mother to craft the brand for the new couple, and the father of the male heats it in a sacred geyser and applies it.”

“That’s...barbaric,” Blaine can’t help but say, imagining the singeing of flesh during something that should be joyful.

“Life isn’t as awful as I think I’ve made it seem,” Kurt says suddenly. “I can still sing, and be with my friends, and my father. There are so many places to explore, so many beautiful traditions and most people are fine with the way things are and can make arrangements they’re happy with.”

“But you can’t. Kurt, that’s not okay--”

“I know. But...but my life isn’t just that. There’s a ceremony that...that I love. On the winter solstice, my tribe gathers around our sacred geyser, and Isabelle and the other Shamans perform the most incredible magic. They light up the geyser in all kinds of incredible colors, and the whole tribe sings and the water gets so warm and you can feel the magic on your skin. And then we exchange gifts, little things to show that we care. Just trinkets, jewelry, things like that. And one year my friends saved up and they bought a spell from one of the Shamans, and Isabelle performed it for me. It made my scales glow for a whole week, like the geyser--no one could ignore me then.”

The last words are said bitterly, and Blaine wants so badly to show Kurt a life where he could have the beautiful moments and still be allowed to be himself as well.

“I just...feel like I was born in the wrong place,” Kurt continues suddenly. “Like I don’t belong there. My mother felt the same, I think--she took me to shore and taught me the language of the land folk, because she knew their ways. Which...I’m grateful for, now. The first time I used it with someone from the land was with you.”

“You--you don’t speak this language naturally?” Blaine asks. “You don’t speak...differently.”

“I think that’s because my language doesn’t really use words?” Kurt says, a little uncertainly. “It’s more...tones, and signals. It doesn’t use words nearly as much as your language. You can’t really hear them underwater. We do have a language for use above the water, and a lot of our caves and buildings have air pockets, but sometimes it’s just easier to let someone know something without a sound. So when I learned this language, I learned it in the way the nearest people speak it in. That’s your people, and the land people nearby.”

“So I’m not the first person from the land you’ve met?”

“No...you are. Like I said, I’ve never used this language with anyone else. My mother learned from a man who lived nearby, though.” He seems to debate with himself, biting his lip, but then he looks up at Blaine and relaxes. “She learned it from a fisherman that caught her when she was a child. He was mesmerized by her and kept her in a lake near his home for years, until she became very sick. She convinced him to bring her back home, to the sea, because would’ve died if he hadn’t. But she was never the same--she was weak, and she died when I was still a child.”

“I’m sorry,” Blaine says, knowing it would never be enough, but also knowing that it was all he could offer. Kurt smiled at him for it.

“My father loved her very much,” he continues, seemingly just happy to talk about her. “A lot of people did. She was beautiful.”

Blaine’s romantic heart wants to say Kurt is beautiful as well, probably more than she could ever have been, but he stays silent.

“But people never looked at her the same when she came back. Even though it’s not technically possible without very strong magics, some people thought she had...been with the fisherman. She wasn’t, she was always intended for my father and loved him very much, but some people did not view her kindly. They spread...lies. That I was not my father’s son.”

Blaine frowns.

“But you said it wouldn’t be possible without magic.”

“It wouldn’t. But if someone truly despises another, wouldn’t they be willing to believe the impossible if it gave their hate reason?”

Kurt looks so downcast, so angry and sad and lost. Blaine holds out his hand, which Kurt takes, cupping in his own, thumb stroking gently over the feathers along his wrist.

“You don’t deserve how your people treat you, Kurt,” Blaine says. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“I appreciate that, Blaine, but I live in a world that says otherwise,” Kurt whispers, as though he can’t find the strength to really speak. “If only a fisherman had captured me instead.”

He says it wryly, smiling ruefully, and Blaine wants to say _something_ , wants to see him really smile with an urgency that’s sudden and strong, but Kurt turns and looks over at him, taking a deep breath and laughing nervously, pulling his hand from Blaine’s.

“So tell me about your childhood. Tell me about your home.” Kurt slips back into the water from his perch on the rock, as he does when he feels too dry. He looks up at Blaine, the lights from the baubles glinting in his eyes and off the delicate translucence of his skin. His braids trail in the water as he dips down to breathe through his gills for a moment, and he pops back up to spit a stream of water playfully before he laughs, bright and beautiful. “Tell me _everything_.”

\--

Blaine can’t stop thinking about Kurt’s story about the fisherman.

Was the fisherman in love with Kurt’s mother? Did he know she’d become so beautiful when he captured her as a child? Did he know that she was prized for her loveliness in her home? He clearly saw it himself.

Would Blaine have done the same, in that situation, if Kurt had been in his net? Would he have kept Kurt?

He wants to keep Kurt now. He wants to take him from the heavy press of the water and show him how to fly. He wants to let him feel the sun as something that warms, not something that hurts. He wants him to live in the light, live in the beauty of the world, not in a place that forces him to breed with someone he can’t love, that ostracizes him for being different and then refuses to accept him even when he does bend to their conformity. He can’t win, and Blaine wants so badly to take him from such an awful place.

Could he do it? He knows the secrets of Kurt’s world now, he knows how it would work to keep him. Maybe he and Kurt could run away together--Kurt’s not marked yet, after all. Blaine knows Kurt needs the sea. They could find an Eyrie near the sea, and Blaine would build his nest right on the water, so they could live together. He’d do it right in the cave if Kurt’s people didn’t live so close, if he didn’t think they’d come looking for him right there. But if they go, they can...they can be together. Maybe not perfectly, maybe not in the way most people are, but Blaine doesn’t care. He just feels like Kurt _belongs_ in his life, in his home, in his heart.

He just has to talk to Kurt about it. He doesn’t know if Kurt feels the same, even though the way it feels when they look at each other--it feels _right._ Kurt can’t _not_ feel it. It’s strong, it’s _there_. Blaine _knows_ Kurt feels it in the way their hands cup, the way their arms brush, the way their hearts open so naturally to each other. Kurt _has_ to feel it.

Blaine pulls out his pouch, and looks at the feathers within. He has a decent collection. He can’t make anything too elaborate, but he thinks he could make something beautiful, at least. Something that would look beautiful on Kurt. Maybe a necklace, and he can collect sea glass to put on it, and shells, to show the joining of their worlds, to show that sometimes the sea and the sky can go together. They can love each other where the two meet.

He’s going to do it. He’s going to give Kurt a mating offering. They’ll figure it out, it will _work._

“Hey, squirt!”

Blaine sighs, closing his pouch quickly, almost guiltily, and turns to look as Cooper makes his way into Blaine’s home.

“Don’t call me that,” Blaine requests, though he knows it’s in vain. “What do you want, Coop?”

“Oooh, grouchy this morning,” Cooper teases. “Did you get salt in your feathers or what?”

Blaine feels a cold tightness in his belly, a fear and a panic. Cooper _knows._

“N-no,” he blurts. “How would I get salt in my feathers? I haven’t been near the sea.”

Cooper frowns at him confusedly, his mouth still half-twisted into a smile.

“Just a phrase, Blainey,” he says. “But your lying needs some work. If you’re going to keep it up, maybe you should come study the mockingbirds with me. They’re damn good at it themselves, but I’m pretty sure I can get their secrets out of them--”

“Cooper, what do you want?” Blaine asks irritably.

Cooper sits down next to Blaine on his bed, his wings twitching uncertainly.

“Look, I’m not the only one worried about you,” Cooper says. “I’m just the only one who’s going to bring it up before Mom and Dad catch wind of it and get the elders involved. You can’t keep this up.”

“Keep what up?”

“Blaine, we know. We know you’re going off, doing _something_ near the sea. Sam saw you heading to the caves the other day, and you always come back smelling like you got dragged out of the tide. You’re not coming out flying with us, you’re not even taking Flights to go find a mate. I know you want one, you couldn’t talk about anything else for months before you built your own nest. But now you’re off, by yourself, gone for hours, and then you come back and you’re off in another world. So what’s going on?”

Blaine looks over at Cooper--self-absorbed, silly Cooper, who is having the first serious conversation he’s probably ever had with Blaine, showing his concern, and Blaine thinks--maybe Cooper would _get it_. He understands that strange things happen sometimes, he makes them happen himself a great deal of the time.

“Coop--if I tell you, you can’t tell anyone else. It would--it would be bad.”

Cooper looks at him very seriously, and it unnerves Blaine.

“I won’t say anything if you don’t want me to.”

Blaine nods, hoping Cooper can feel his silent thanks, and then he breathes deeply, stroking the feathers on his arms unconsciously, comforting himself.

“I’ve been going to the caves.”

Blaine waits for Cooper to reprimand him for defying the laws that are only for everyone’s good, but he doesn’t. He just shrugs.

“Go on.”

“I’ve...look, do you remember...a few weeks ago, that merman I helped? The one who was washed up on the beach?”

“Yeah,” Cooper says. “The pretty one you couldn’t take your eyes off of. You’ve been seeing him?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. So...why the caves? Why can’t you just meet on the beach? And why haven’t you _introduced_ us?”

Cooper smacks Blaine on the arm and grins at him, but Blaine shakes his head.

“He’s not supposed to be seeing me,” Blaine explains. “His people...they don’t approve of...of non-breeding relationships. He’s going to be mated to a girl, but he prefers men. He told me if he didn’t go through with it, he’d be killed.”

Cooper’s eyes go wide, and his smile falls.

“His people would kill one of their own? Just for...for loving?”

“Yes.”

Cooper whistles, eyes drifting down to the floor.

“That’s not good. Are there others? Ones he can be...himself with?”

“Not that he knows of. Even if there are, they’d probably kill him, too--the tribes down there are always at war. And it’s not just his tribe, either--it’s some kind of religion, it’s part of their culture.”

“Not any kind of culture I’d want to live in, that’s for sure. So...what are you going to do?”

That’s Cooper--action, moving forward, even if he hits a wall. Blaine smiles fondly.

“I want to offer a mating,” he says. “I’m in love with him, Coop. He’s everything.”

“Come on, kid, you couldn’t just fall for that obnoxious creep who came here on his Flight last year? He was pretty into you.”

“He tried to offer a mating to someone underage, Coop, I’m pretty sure--”

“--you weren’t _that_ underage--”

“--I do not want to be with someone like that--”

“--and he wasn’t offering a mating so much as...you know... _mating_.”

Blaine covers his face and laughs at the memory, if only because it makes it less uncomfortable.

“No, Coop,” he says, when he settles. “Kurt is it for me. I can feel it. I want to spend my life with him.”

“How does that work, then?” Cooper asks. “You going to give up your feathers, learn to swim? Or is he going to dry up and drag himself everywhere by his elbows?”

Blaine grimaces.

“I don’t know how it would work,” he admits. “But I’m willing to figure it out.”

“Well, I support you,” Cooper says, and Blaine smiles gratefully at him. “Not sure the Elders will, but there’s no reason to go against you. You love this fish guy, that’s it.”

“He’s not a fish.”

“He looks like a fish.”

“Coop--”

“Okay, fine, he’s not a fish,” Cooper concedes, rolling his eyes. “Whatever. You gonna make him an offering soon, then?”

“I think I’m going to talk to him tomorrow,” Blaine says. “See if...if he’s willing to come with me. See if he’s willing to...to work it out.”

“If he doesn’t, he’s an idiot,” Cooper says simply. “But no one can resist our charm, just remember that, Blainey. And if he does, with his weird not-fish magic, there’s always that pretty boy in the village who keeps selling you things half-price. I mean, you’d always be stocked for anything you need, and you could pass some along to me--”

“Thanks, Coop.”

“No problem, little brother.”


	5. Chapter 5

p>Blaine doesn’t craft the offering that day, but he gathers the materials for it. He flies to the beach first, to seek out shells and sea glass. He gathers quite a bit, enough to substantially add to his current collection. When he is satisfied, he flies to a land village, as well, heading to the marketplace to seek out other additions. He trades some of the less pleasing shells and glass for a strong length of fishing line, which Blaine hopes Kurt will find funny rather than offensive, because it’s the only thing available that he can string the necklace with that can withstand the water. And perhaps if he braids it, it’ll look nicer than just a length of white cord with a shiny curing on the outside. He bought enough, and he can roughly measure the length it’ll be around his own neck.

And then he goes through the stalls, and stops dead.

Marked very low, because of how imperfect it is, is a large pearl, about the size of his thumb. It’s ridged, and misshapen, too long and thinner at one end than the other, almost shaped like a teardrop. But it’s a beautiful silvery-blue color, iridescent and bright, and it reminds him of Kurt’s scales, and his eyes in the pale light of the baubles.

He trades a full feather for it, a beautiful striped one that fell from the end of his wing a week prior. It’s nearly the length of his forearm, and in return, the shopkeeper gives him not just that pearl, but two striped beads of tiger’s eye, and Blaine thinks Kurt might like that they’re the same color as his eyes, tawny and brown and orange and yellow and green threaded together in layers

and swirls. They’re pretty, and Blaine and the shopkeeper both walk away pleased.

He has everything he needs. He just needs to put it together, and talk to Kurt.

\--

The next morning, Blaine is tired, and almost late for his meeting with Kurt. He’d gotten back to the Eyrie quite late, and stayed up even later in his excitement to lay out the necklace how he wants it. When that was complete, and when he had a plan for braiding and threading all the beads and glass and gems and feathers, he got the tools for it out and laid them in order, ready to be used the next day, as soon as he’s done talking to Kurt. Now that he has a plan, he doesn’t want to waste anymore time. He wants Kurt to be _his._

But the next morning, Kurt is definitely late.

Blaine waits for him for just over an hour before he arrives. When he surfaces, he immediately throws his arms up to cling to the rock, gasping as he drags himself halfway out of the water.

Something is very wrong.

“Blaine--” he croaks, coughing, and Blaine, completely disregarding his own safety, slides down the rock to help him out. He doesn’t even mind when a few of the feathers on his wrist get water from Kurt’s hair on them--it doesn’t matter, not when he can see bruises over Kurt’s pale back, concentrated over his ribs, but spreading out down his spine and across his shoulders.

Some of them look like they’ve bled. Blaine can’t see, he has to be able to see--

“Kurt, can you stay here?” he asks, brushing Kurt’s hair back. He can’t even see his face, with him lying face-down, his head buried in his arms. But he can do _something_ , he has to do _something_ \-- “Can I leave you for a second? I need--I need light--”

Kurt nods, and Blaine stands and takes off, flying up to one of the baubles hanging along the top of the cave. He plucks it down, and drops, landing heavily and rushing back to the water. As soon as he dips the bauble in the water, it brightens from its dim glow, and he settles it carefully on the rock before returning to Kurt.

He definitely has some scratches that bled, but it’s not as bad as Blaine thought--that, or Kurt healed himself, though Blaine’s not sure if that would work, or how. His bruises are dark, and widely scattered, and Blaine catches some around Kurt’s arms that are certainly in the shape of fingers.

“Kurt--”

“I...they know,” Kurt says. “Not about here, but--that I’m going somewhere. Maybe. I don’t know.”

“What? Kurt, tell me what happened, are you okay--”

“I’ll be fine,” Kurt says, his voice clearing up, and Kurt pushes himself til he’s on his back. His chest heaves for breath, and Blaine grabs his hand, lifting it gently so he can kiss the back of it, looking sadly at the bruises just where it thins to his wrist, which looks suddenly fragile.

“Who--who did this, Kurt?”

“Just some boys from my tribe,” Kurt replies, and his tone is far too dismissive for something that makes Blaine want to curse his own well-being and swim down to deliver punishment to whoever did this. “They--they harass me, sometimes. Whenever they catch me away from my friends. I don’t know what they were doing so near the shore, but I ran into them on my way here, and they questioned me. I told them I was going to the beach, that I’d lost a necklace when I washed up and wanted to look for it, but they didn’t believe me. They--I don’t know what they think, but they started to grab me, and they pushed me into some rocks--”

“Oh, Kurt--”

“--I can’t...I don’t know what to do, Blaine. I’m so sorry.”

Kurt’s face is crumpled, and he lifts his hands, pulling the one that is held in Blaine’s away, covering his eyes and shaking.

Can Kurt cry? Can he add, drop by drop, to the ocean around him? How much of its swell has already come from his eyes, because of the horrible things done to him? Because of the people who were taught that it was okay? How much came from the loss of his mother, and the fact that he is not free to love? How much of this damned ocean came from his beautiful Kurt’s pain?

Blaine hates the ocean. He hates it so much--

“I’m going to be okay, Blaine.”

“No you aren’t,” Blaine says, and Kurt flinches. Blaine immediately reaches out, brushing his hair back again, tucking his braids behind his ears, brushing his cheeks afterward. Kurt’s eyes are huge, staring at him, shocked, but happy, and Blaine smiles at him. It’s the closest they’ve ever been, the most contact between them, and Blaine doesn’t want it to stop. He wants Kurt’s skin to warm to his, to see a flush in those cheeks, to see him look _alive_ \--

“Kurt, how are you--what are you going to do? They...they’re going to hurt you again, aren’t they?”

Kurt bites his lip and turns his face, looking away, his eyelashes fluttering as he blinks rapidly. Blaine reaches out and cups his jaw, turning his face back.

“Tell me the truth.”

“If--I’ve been putting off my union with Santana,” Kurt admits. “I...I’ve had a lot of excuses. If...if I do it much more, they’ll do much worse than this.”

It’s said so calmly, so blankly, and Blaine feels rage quaking in him. He bites it back and takes a deep breath. He _has_ to do this.

“Kurt, you could leave.”

Kurt looks up at him skeptically.

“No, Blaine, I can’t--”

“You can--”

“Where?” Kurt bursts out, frustration etching every line of him. “Where would I go, Blaine? Anyone would _kill_ me--”

“ _Your_ people would kill you. Not mine.”

Kurt gasps, his body tensing and going almost rigid.

“Blaine, how--”

“There are Eyries by the sea,” Blaine says. _Pleads_. “Other places, where we won’t be so close to your people. You could...I’d build us a home, I’d figure it out. It could be halfway into the water, and you could stay down there, and I’d sleep right next to the water, and we--we could be together.”

Kurt stares at him seriously, his mouth set in a thin line.

“Blaine, what do you mean by together.”

Blaine licks his lips, and shuffles where he sits. He needs Kurt to understand this. He takes his hand.

“Kurt, there is a moment...when you say to yourself--’Oh! There you are.’”

He looks into Kurt’s eyes, and smiles.

“I’ve been looking for you forever.”

“Oh, Blaine--”

“I--I know it’ll be hard,” he continues, frantic to get it all out, to _convince_ Kurt. Because he knows Kurt is scared, but he _knows_ , he can see in Kurt’s eyes, that he feels this, too. “We’ll never be...exactly like I’m sure we’ve both wanted. But...I want to try. Can...can we do that, Kurt? Can we try?”

“What exactly are we trying?” Kurt asks, barely above a whisper.

Blaine leans in, touching their foreheads. He stares at Kurt’s mouth, parted to draw in breath when Blaine’s own lungs feel like they can’t hold another bit of air.

“I want you to be my mate.”

Kurt’s voice breaks out in a sob, and his head drops to Blaine’s shoulder. He buries his eyes in Blaine’s neck, and his arms come up to wrap around his shoulders, his fingers barely brushing into his feathers. Blaine shivers at the contact, and holds Kurt close, hands gentle on his bruised and battered back.

“Say yes.”

Kurt laughs, and nods, lifting his head and smiling widely.

“Okay.”

Blaine grins at him, and reaches up with one hand to cup Kurt’s face.

“Okay,” he whispers back, closing the space between them and covering Kurt’s lips with his own.

Kurt stops breathing as Blaine moves their lips together, and is still for a long moment before he relaxes and responds, following Blaine’s lead for only a moment before he takes charge, reaching up to hold Blaine’s cheek in one hand, tilting him and taking his top lip between his own. Blaine lets out a breathy moan, licking at Kurt’s bottom lip and pulling him closer, breathing in everything about him until he pulls away slowly.

“Oh,” he says, and Blaine laughs.

“I know,” he breathes.

Kurt smiles at him, and then pulls back.

“How...how can this work?” he asks. “If I go back, they’ll ask where I was. I...I’m not sure--”

“How far do you think we should go?” Blaine asks. “I can ask tonight about other Eyries, and I might be able to send a message.”

“I’m not sure,” Kurt says, shaking his head. “I can...I can talk to my dad, and Isabelle, the Shaman who doesn’t think I’m an abomination.” He grimaces bitterly. “She might be able to tell me where I can go, if there’s a place my people don’t go. Or even if there’s...if there’s something I can do.”

“One more day, then,” Blaine says assuredly. “Go back one more time. Find out what you can, and then...do they know about these caves?”

“Some do,” Kurt replies, and Blaine bites his lip.

“We’ll have to be quick, then,” he muses. “I’ll find out what I can tonight. We’ll meet here tomorrow, and then...if we can, we’ll go. If not, I can make sure you’re comfortable here, or I can take you to an inland lake temporarily, so you can at least have water while we wait for an opportunity. I know it will be hard--if you have any other ideas--”

“No, I’ll do it,” Kurt says. “I’ll do it for you. I can say goodbye to my father tonight, and Isabelle. They can say goodbye to everyone else for me once I’m gone, I can’t risk one of them telling someone else--”

“You’re incredible, Kurt,” Blaine blurts out, smiling at him lovingly, and Kurt beams.

“I can leave,” he says, as though it’s a revelation. “I can...Blaine, I can leave. I’m going to be free. Because of you.”

He throws himself at Blaine, kissing him hard, wrapping his arms around Blaine as tightly as he can.

“Thank you,” he whispers.

Blaine kisses him back.

“Thank _you_.”

\--

With a plan in place, Blaine’s heart is as light as his bones, and he goes back to the Eyrie prepared to tell them everything. While they could have stopped him before, if only for his own safety, they can’t now--there are a lot of exceptions made for mates, and Blaine intends to make his offering to Kurt. It’s enough.

It’s not enough to convince some people, but most accept it with a shrug. Blaine tells his parents first, who don’t understand, but once he declares his intention to mate, they accede to his judgment. But they take him to the Elders, one of whom is not easy to convince.

“Why should our people have to go to these lengths for a fish?” Sue asks. She’s an intimidating woman, golden-feathered and severe, but thankfully, Jan, a sweet little woman who always had a fondness for Blaine, cuts in.

“We go to these lengths for any who need the help,” she insists. “If this...merman is Blaine’s intended mate, then he’s one of us. We make special cases for the land folk, if one of the Winged wants to mate them. We can make exceptions for this.”

Without waiting for a reply from Sue, something that Blaine sees causes a great deal of ire in Sue herself, Jan turns back to him.

“I believe there’s an Eyrie two days’ flight up the coast. They don’t have cliffs like ours, but they do have caves they build their nests in. I’m sure there will be caves near enough to the water to have a connection to it. You and your Kurt can find a home there, I’m sure. I’ll send word--you should know in a week if it’s acceptable, though I don’t see why not. Til then, you said you’ve been going into a cave already?”

Blaine blushes, shame-faced, as he nods, admitting it.

“Yes, I have.”

“Don’t take too many more risks, but if the cave has been safe this far, I’m sure it’ll continue to be so for a few more days. Let us know if there is any help we can give you.”

She speaks for the Elders, technically, but Blaine knows she’s speaking mostly for herself. She and her mate Liz have always had exactly what Blaine wants--a lifelong, strong love, filled with joy.

His friends find out next, though they need little telling. They simply ask him--

“Do you love him?”

His smile is answer enough.

So he spends the rest of the night crafting the necklace. He’s not even halfway done by the time he needs to sleep--it’s intricate, delicate work, especially boring holes in the shells and glass he selected himself from the beach. And handling the line, twining and twisting and threading it, is a job for smaller fingers than his own. But he perseveres, and it’s starting to turn into something lovely when he lays down to sleep.

The next morning, he wakes before the sun. He grooms himself quickly, haphazardly, knowing he missed far too many spots, but it’s not important today. The only thing that matters is seeing Kurt, and letting him know that he finally has a home, a place to go. They _can_ do this.

\--

Blaine waits for hours in the cave. Kurt doesn’t show up.

His heart falls with every passing moment, and there are many. But he waits, dipping the baubles when they dim, absently picking at his feathers and brushing them into place, circling the cave and peering into the water as deeply as he can, as though Kurt is hiding just out of view.

He’s not.

Blaine isn’t ready to give up, but he’s well on his way, when Kurt finally surfaces.

“Kurt, there--”

Kurt looks at him like the world is crumbling.

“--you are. Kurt?”

He reaches out, but Kurt quickly swims backward, out of reach. He holds himself with his arms, shoulders hunched, face drawn in misery. Blaine’s heart clenches--this isn’t right, something’s not right, something’s happened--

“Kurt, what’s happening?”

“I...I can’t come with you, Blaine.”

Blaine’s lungs feel rock-hard, his heart frozen.

“Yes you can,” Blaine insists, hope draining away from him like the blood draining from his face. “I spoke to my Elders. They’ll accept you, they have a place for us--”

“They know. My people...they know.”

Kurt looks up, and he’s crying. Tears stream down his face freely.

“I’m not even supposed to be here. My father--my father pretended he was going to punish me. He’s letting me say goodbye.”

“No,” Blaine says immediately. “No, don’t say goodbye, never say goodbye to me--”

“I have to,” Kurt sobs. “They’re going to kill everyone. My father, Isabelle, Santana. If I don’t...cooperate, if I don’t go back, if I don’t marry Santana and do as they say, they’ll kill them. And they’ll send anyone they can to find me and kill me, too.”

“Why?” Blaine demands, frustration and hurt and anger overwhelming him. “Why can’t they just let you go? Why can’t they let it be? One person, they can let one person go--”

“No they can’t,” Kurt cries. “Can’t you see? If they let me go, what’s to stop anyone else from leaving? What’s to stop others from being different and going after what they want instead of what’s best for the tribe? What the gods tell them is right? They can’t let me win, or they lose credibility, Blaine. That’s all this is about.”

His face completely crumples, and Blaine scoots down further, reaching out.

“Please come here, Kurt. Please.”

Kurt sobs hard and swims forward, right into Blaine’s arms. He buries his face in Blaine’s neck and cries, long and loud and broken, and Blaine feels himself tearing up along with him, slowly losing control of his heartbreak.

“There’s nothing we can do?”

“...no.”

Blaine kisses Kurt hard, frantically. Kurt kisses back for only a moment before he hiccups out another broken cry of grief, pulling away.

“I have to go,” he says.

“No,” Blaine pleads, holding tighter. “No, don’t go. Kurt, please don’t--”

“I have to--”

“--we can figure this out, we’ll--”

“--let me go, Blaine--”

“-- _no_ \--”

“I can’t do this!” Kurt shouts, wrenching himself away. “Say goodbye to me, Blaine.”

“No. No, I won’t.”

Kurt covers his face and tries to leave, but Blaine holds him.

“No,” he continues. “Kurt, promise me you won’t give up on us. I won’t. We’ll do something. Promise me.”

“How can I?” Kurt asks, so obviously breaking.

He needs something. Something to know Blaine means it, that they can do this. If only Blaine had finished the offering--

But he doesn’t have the offering. He only has himself.

He spreads his wings, reaches back, and selects a sleek, perfect feather. Bracing himself, he tugs hard on the base of its shaft, parting it from his wing with a pained cry.

“Blaine--” Kurt gasps. Blaine just holds up the feather.

“Take this,” he says. “It’s not what I wanted to give you, but it’s a part of me. I’ll be with you, Kurt, no matter what. I’ll wait for you. I know we can find a way.”

Kurt reaches out and accepts the feather, smiling sadly at it, stroking its barbs lovingly.

“Thank you,” he says, his voice gravelly and quickly fading into more tears. But he pulls one of his braids forward, and threads the quill into it tightly, using some of the dark twine at the end of the braid to secure it. And then he looks up at Blaine, lip trembling, feather brushing his chest, perfectly in place.

“Kurt--”

Kurt reaches up around his neck and removes one of his necklaces--a delicate chain, its tiny links apparently carved from pale blue sea-glass, with a single piece of coral carved like lace in the center. He rises up, and slips it around Blaine’s neck, placing the piece of coral right in the center of his chest. He kisses above it, just over Blaine’s heart, and then pulls away.

“I love you,” Kurt manages, through his sudden heaving sobs, and then he flips down and is gone beneath the cursed water.

“No!” Blaine screams, his voice echoing around the cave. “Kurt, no! Come back. _Come back!_ ”

He almost jumps in the water after him. He almost does it. But he’d die, and he can’t have Kurt’s last memory of him be--

No. Kurt’s last memory of him will be painful enough.

But he can’t--he _can’t_ let it be Kurt’s final memory of him.

But he doesn’t know what else he can do.

He folds up, hugging his knees to his chest, and curls into a ball, crying hard into his arms. He doesn’t feel the scrape of the rocks on his feet, or the pain in his wing from where he plucked the feather. He doesn’t feel the light spray of water of his feet, or the echoing drip off the walls around him.

He just feels the cold coming off the sea, seeping into him, bone-deep.


	6. Chapter 6

Blaine continues work on Kurt’s offering.

He takes his materials in a folded work cloth and transfers it all to their cave. By the light of the baubles, Blaine weaves the line, braiding in beads and glass and feathers, working to the beat of the drip off the stalactites and the flow of the tides seeping in across the rocks. He performs his obligations to his flock and flies with them, hunting and gathering and scavenging off the sea, fishing and trading and building and growing. But as soon as he’s done with it, he heads to his cave, staying until he can barely climb out and fly to his nest to sleep a scant number of hours before he wakes and does it all again.

It takes a week until it’s finished.

It’s perhaps the most stunning piece Blaine could ever have expected to make, with his negligible crafting skills. The back would connect between Kurt’s shoulder blades, the clasp made of two glass beads that twist to interlock, the edge of one tied to a long, thick feather that would brush down Kurt’s back. Around the front, the single thick braid continues just over the shoulders, at which point it splits into four smaller ropes that draped progressively lower, the split covered by two fan shells. The top alternates beads and sea glass woven into it, with two small feathers halfway to the center on each side. The next again alternates sea glass and various beads, but at the center, a long feather hangs, covering the center of the third rope, which is woven tightly and entirely with different kinds of sea shell. The fourth and final rope contains two long feathers at the halfway points to the center, and a tight string of beads all the way down to the middle, from which the large pearl dangles between the two beads of tiger’s eye, just long enough to match where the bead clasp falls in the back. It’s not perfect, and the beads and glass and shells aren’t perfectly matched or symmetrical. The feathers aren’t exactly the same lengths, and the line it’s woven with wasn’t the best material, but when it’s done, Blaine thinks it would have been perfect.

 _Would_ have been. Because no matter how much he wants to wait here every day, Kurt isn’t coming back.

He lays the necklace on the top of the rock they’d favored sitting on. He lowers all the baubles into the water, letting them float and cast their renewed light, flickering over the cave. And then he gathers up his tools, folds them into the cloth, and ties it all to his belt so that he doesn’t lose it on his final climb out. He doesn’t want to have to come back here for any reason.

It hurts too much.

\--

Blaine is different, after that. He’s quieter, and more solemn. And when he’s not fulfilling duties for his flock and the Eyrie, he’s at the beach, sitting on the rocks and staring out at the sea.

He knows the others worry about him. But none of them try to talk to him. They know why he’s despondent, why his heart breaks every day. Because Kurt isn’t with him, he doesn’t rise above the waves, doesn’t return to him.

A few people have suggested he go on Flights, but Blaine has no desire to seek out another mate. As far as he’s concerned, Kurt is his mate, and he won’t take another. He made his offering, and he left it for Kurt--whether Kurt will ever find it or if it’ll wash away in the tides, he’ll never know, but either way, he considers it accepted. He won’t ever make another.

He does sell the rest of his fallen feathers, though. He has no need for them anymore, as he has no offerings to make and no mate to gift them to. Instead, he uses the credit for them in the market to buy things that remind him of Kurt--beads that are the color of his scales, or a braid of leather that’s the same color as his hair. Shells that Kurt said were his favorite, or things he’d think Kurt would like--clothes and trinkets and furnishings for their home, the home Blaine would never build.

Instead, everything he purchased went in a wicker chest he kept by his bed, with the necklace Kurt had given him when they parted. He doesn’t have the heart to wear it and risk losing it or breaking it, or reliving memories of Kurt when he needs to be focused for his flock.

He knows it’s not healthy. Sam and Brittany and Jan and Liz and Cooper and all his other friends try to cheer him up, take his mind off of things, but he merely acquiesces politely until they can keep him no longer, and he flies off to the shore again to look out and wonder where Kurt is, what he’s doing.

Is he alive? Did he marry Santana? Are they having children together, locked in their underwater caves with only baubles to light their way? Has he had a brand burned into his skin? He must--it’s been months, and he would have done what he had to to survive and save his loved ones by now. Is he content? Is he surviving? Is he looking up to the surface like Blaine is looking below it, hoping that the other is somewhere on the other side?

Either way, the change in the seasons is coming.

“We’re going to fly soon, you know that, Blainey,” Cooper says one day, walking up to him where he sits on the beach.

“I know,” Blaine replies.

“Do you want to stay?” his brother asks, sitting next to him. “I mean...you’ll have to go to the market and the land people for company, and you’ll have to hunt and fish on your own, but I get the feeling you’d be happier by yourself, lately.”

“I’d be happier with my mate.”

Cooper sighs.

“I know,” he says, and places a warm, strong hand on the back of Blaine’s neck, squeezing affectionately. “Which is why I’ll stay, if you stay.”

“What?” Blaine asks, incredulous. “Coop, no. You love the migration. And you hate winter. Why would you stay?”

“Because my little brother needs me,” Cooper says simply. “Besides, with the rest of the flocks down south for the winter, that leaves a distinct lack of competition for the land ladies who like wings on their men, if you know what I mean.”

Blaine laughs, and ducks his head. He’s so tired, so drawn, and laughing feels good.

“When do you leave?” Blaine asks quietly.

“The flock wants to head out before the end of the month,” Cooper replies. “When they go depends entirely on you. Take your time deciding--but if you want to stay, let me know and I’ll bring word to the Elders. You and me, we’ve done this plenty. We’ve gone on adventures together--”

“--you’ve gotten me into trouble--”

“--and we’ve made it through. This’ll be an adventure. Maybe we’ll build a boat and go out to sea and find Kurt, how about that? I hear there are some land folk who can go underwater, even. They’ve got these helmets--”

“No, Coop,” Blaine says. “I--it’d be a waste of time.”

“Well, you let me know, and we’ll figure it out.” He rises, shaking out his wings and stretching in the light of the evening sun. “Just keep in mind that there are people who love you that aren’t beneath tons of water, okay?”

Blaine doesn’t reply, and Cooper flies away, leaving him with that to consider.

Could he leave his family and friends for half a year, to wait here for something that will never come? Or could he leave the barest chance that he might see Kurt again? He promised he’d never give up, and he doesn’t want to break that promise, but he’s not sure he could survive the solitude. He’s kept to himself more often than not recently, it’s true, but the time with the flock has kept his mind and body occupied while his heart continues to ache.

Could he live like that, with only the pain to keep him company?

When he goes to bed that night, his doubt is too heavy to ignore for long.

\--

“Cooper?”

Coop rubs his eyes and peeks out of his nest at Blaine.

“What’s up, squirt?”

Blaine ignores the nickname and smiles sadly at his brother, who yawns widely, his jaw cracking, his face ridiculous when he squints against the palest of morning lights.

“I’ve made up my mind.”

“Yeah? So what’s the plan?”

Blaine looks out at the water, and then turns back.

“I’ll fly with the flock.”

\--

As soon as Cooper is done hugging him and assuring him that he’ll be okay, Blaine flies to the caves.

He doesn’t go into the cave. He can’t bear to see his offering still laying on the rock, abandoned and waiting, and there’s a distinct chance that that is exactly what he’ll see. And he can’t let himself be convinced to stay if the offering is simply not there, because it was washed away by one of the higher tides that suddenly wash up and make the caves dangerous in the first place.

So he sits just inside the mouth of the cave, waves crashing into the pillars to his left, the tunnel echoing endlessly to his right.

“I love you, Kurt,” he says to both. One way or another, maybe the message will travel. “I would have given anything to keep you with me. Maybe if I’d been born one of your people, or you born one of mine, we could’ve figured something out, but...I don’t think there’s anything I can do. Even if I could breathe underwater, I wouldn’t know how to find you. I would try, though. I just don’t think...I don’t think I should stay here and wish, and dream, and wonder what could have happened. So...I’m leaving. I’m not giving up on us--I’ll always wait for you, and I’ll always hope you come back someday, but it’ll have to be in the spring. I can’t leave my family for a fantasy. If there’s...any sign, anything you can give me, though...I’ll stay.”

Blaine waits. But the waves continue crashing, and the silence continues to ring on the other side. He whispers a final vow into the tunnel, and flies back to the Eyrie.

\--

There is no last-minute rush. There is no dramatic moment of tension. Blaine simply packs his prized valuables, and secures the rest down against the winter storms. He takes Kurt’s necklace with him, but leaves the rest in the chest, anchored to the rocks and covered with waterproof coverings and lashed tightly. His nest will be ready for him when they return in the spring, and he can decide what to do with everything then--build a home with them, perhaps, something larger and closer to the water, or maybe sell it all and use the gain from it to fly somewhere else, away from the memories. Maybe go to live with the land folk, so he’s near his family, but not tempted by the ocean and caves. Maybe he’ll find a place to settle down, or maybe he’ll just fly for the rest of his life, seeking a release from the pain that the crashing of waves brings him.

Three days before the flock is set to leave, Cooper ambles up to him casually where he sits in the center of the village, perched on a branch and threading some fishing line for Liz, whose hands aren’t steady enough to do so nowadays.

“Blainey, what would you say if I told you I went to the caves?”

Blaine looks up, confused and hurt and filled with heavy trepidation.

“I would ask why you would do that.”

“Well, I’ll admit, I did it on a whim,” Cooper says, sitting easily next to Blaine, letting his legs swing like a child’s. “I thought, if the world were truly cruel, I’d go to the caves and find nothing. And Blaine would let go of his fishman forever and I couldn’t tell stories about how it was because of me that he found happiness. But so far, in my wisdom, I have found life to be, overall, a pretty nice experience.”

Blaine rolls his eyes at Cooper’s rambling.

“Cooper, what--”

“And, as always, I was right.”

Blaine looks over at Cooper sharply.

“What are you saying, Coop--”

“I’m saying that I found something.”

“In the caves?”

“That’s right.”

“What did you find?”

Cooper shrugs, smiling. Blaine pushes him off the branch, gritting his teeth when Cooper just laughs and flies back up.

“Take it easy, little brother. I can take you to see it. You know...if you’re not quite ready to let go just yet.”

Blaine stands. Anything, any sign from Kurt--he needs to see it. He needs to see whatever Cooper found.

“Cooper, show me.”

Cooper grins.

“All right.”


	7. Chapter 7

Of all the things Blaine expected Cooper to have found, this is not it.

It’s not a message. It’s not a sign. It’s not a trinket or a keepsake or, in his own worst case scenario, just one of the baubles he’d left to float endlessly.

It’s his offering, hung, just like in his fondest dreams, over Kurt’s white shoulders.

“Blaine.”

Blaine stares into Cooper’s nest with bated breath, unable to move for several long moments while he processes what he sees. Kurt, _his_ Kurt, out of the sea, laying in Cooper’s bed, half-reclined on thick pillows, covered in warm blankets. He’s pale and drawn, dark circles around his eyes, but he looks so _happy_ and he’s _here_ and he’s _alive_ and he is wearing the mating offering that Blaine left for him.

“Kurt?”

Kurt nods, his smile widening, tears building in his eyes. Out of sheer joy, he laughs, holding one hand out to Blaine weakly.

“It’s me, Blaine--”

“ _Kurt_ \--”

The movement toward Kurt is so natural, so instinctive, that he doesn’t even realize he’s moved until he’s kneeling next to the low bed, his arms snaking up along Kurt’s to grip his shoulders as he buries into Kurt’s hold, pressing his forehead to Kurt’s collarbone just above the necklace.

“ _Kurt_.”

“I’m here,” Kurt whispers, and Blaine feels Kurt’s lips pressing soft kisses into his hair. Fingers play with his feathers, drawing them between and stroking them softly--

Blaine starts. Kurt has his feathers _between_ his fingers. But he can’t--Kurt’s hands are webbed--

He leans up and removes himself from Kurt’s embrace, grabbing his wrists and bringing them around so he can hold up his hands.

They’re perfectly normal hands, land-hands, the long digits separated by air and not the thin membrane Blaine had become accustomed to.

“Kurt, what--”

Kurt shifts their hands, and laces them together, smiling serenely at the interlocking of their fingers.

“That’s not all that’s changed,” he says pleasantly, and Blaine feels something shift next to him.

The blankets shift over Kurt’s bottom half, and Blaine finds himself staring.

“Kurt--”

“Just look.”

He pushes the blankets down to his waist, revealing his bare chest, and Blaine reaches out tentatively. At a nod from Kurt, he pushes them further down, baring the jut of hipbones--and no scales forming below them. The blankets shift and reveal a simple cloth wrapped around him, ostensibly for modesty.

Below them, a pair of long, lean thighs shift restlessly.

“Kurt,” Blaine gasps. “You--you have--”

“Legs?” Kurt finishes. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

Blaine pulls the blankets off of him completely, and indeed, he has legs, ending in long feet that flex and twitch as Kurt smiles down at them.

“I’m not--quite used to it yet,” he says, and one leg bends up, his calves rubbing together, a faint dusting of light brown hair over white skin. Blaine reaches out without thinking and touches his shin, feeling the warm skin beneath him, the hard bone and the pulse of life under his palm. It’s different than the cool scales of his flexible fin--

Blaine pulls his hand back quickly.

“I’m sorry, I should have asked--”

“Blaine,” Kurt says, reaching down and grabbing Blaine’s nearest hand and placing it on his thigh. “I don’t know if you noticed, what with everything that’s happening, but what am I wearing around my neck?”

Blaine looks up again with a grin, and truly realizes-- _Kurt is wearing his mating offering_. And he’s told Kurt before, and Kurt knows, that wearing the offering means acceptance of it.

“You’re my mate,” Blaine breathes in disbelief. “Kurt--”

He surges up, hand still firmly on Kurt’s thigh, and kisses him.

It’s different than before. Kurt had tasted like salt and his mouth hadn’t been as warm as Blaine’s own, but now it’s totally different. It’s definitely Kurt’s lips, fitting perfectly along his own, Kurt’s hands on his cheeks, but he tastes warmer, less like the sea. But it’s his _Kurt, his._

“I love you,” Blaine says, just because he can, between kisses. “Love you. How are you here?”

Kurt laughs and stills Blaine’s mouth on his own, pushing him back just enough to speak.

“Can we go back to your nest?” Kurt asks. “I’m comfortable here and all, but your brother has been eavesdropping at the door and I think we should speak of this in private.”

Blaine rolls his eyes.

“Cooper--”

“Just checking on my baby brother and his mate,” Cooper says innocently, peeking his head in past the cloth over the door. “Need some help getting to yours?”

“No,” Blaine says. “I’ll take him.”

“Well, I’m coming along, anyway,” Cooper announces. “I should probably tell you how I found him.”

Kurt smiles, and swings his legs--his _legs_ \--out off the bed, and Blaine helps him stand unsteadily.

“They’re perfectly serviceable legs,” Kurt says wryly, “but balance is something I still have to learn. Just--hold me up?”

Blaine pulls one of Kurt’s arms around his shoulders, and then Kurt walks unsteadily out, leaning heavily on Blaine. Blaine lets him--anything to keep close to Kurt, anything at all. He’d be perfectly happy to wait forever to hear the stories, even, he’s just so happy that Kurt is _here_ \--

“Healer said you should get some sun,” Cooper says, as soon as they step out and Kurt winces at the brightness of the late morning light. “Get used to it, you know?”

“You’ve seen a healer?” Blaine asks, blinking between them. “How long have you been here?”

“He’s been here since just before sunrise,” Cooper answers for him, and holds up a hand to still Blaine’s protest. “I didn’t come get you right away because I didn’t know what the hell was going on. Kurt was basically unconscious when I found him. Can we go sit somewhere warm and you can hold Kurt right in your lap and we’ll talk before you go back to your nest?”

Kurt raises the hand that’s around Blaine’s shoulders and pets his hair.

“Let’s talk, Blaine,” he says. “And I should get used to the sun. I’ll be seeing a lot of it from now on.”

Blaine immediately softens, and grins. Kurt is going to be living in the _sun_ and it’s everything he wanted--

“Okay.”

Blaine turns to Kurt, and wraps his arms around his waist. Kurt holds Blaine around the shoulders, smiling back at him, kissing his nose when they’re wrapped up in each other.

“Hold on tight,” Blaine says, and Kurt’s eyes widen and he laughs and then Blaine takes off.

Kurt yelps in surprise at the sudden ascent from the ground. His legs scrabble until he finally manages to wrap his thighs around one of Blaine’s, and Blaine holds Kurt close and warm and he feels so wonderful against Blaine like this.

"Blaine!” Kurt shouts, laughing wildly as Blaine flies them over the pillars to the largest one, to the Dome. He flies into the middle and then alights them on a branch midway down, settling Kurt in his lap like Cooper suggested. Kurt holds him tight, looking down nervously.

“I can’t--can’t believe--” Kurt laughs again, breathless. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.”

“You will,” Blaine says, and the future suddenly rises up before him--no longer a threatening loom, but a swell of opportunity and a horizon that he very much wants. “I’ll make sure of it.”

Kurt cups his cheek in his hand and looks at him fondly, and that’s how Cooper finds them when he lands next to them.

“Okay, storytime from me,” Cooper says, “and then you two can go be sickening together alone in your nest.”

“Our nest,” Blaine whispers in Kurt’s ear, and Kurt flushes and his mouth hangs open, as though he could never have imagined. They’ll talk, they’ll talk about it, they’ll discuss everything, as soon as Cooper says what he has to say--

“Okay, so here’s how it went,” Cooper begins, and they hold each other close in the warmth of the sun on their backs and listen. “I went out to the caves, because I just got this feeling I should. Obviously my instincts are spectacular, because I found the tunnel down to the big cave, and I got not halfway down and there was Kurt, half-awake and clinging to a rock.”

“You climbed up the tunnels?” Blaine asks, shocked, but Cooper hushes him before Kurt can answer.

“Ah, ah, my story,” he says. “Yes, I found him halfway up the tunnel. He was stark naked except for that necklace he’s wearing now, so I sacrificed one of my favorite vests to rip up a little wrap for him there. I expect you to replace it, by the way.”

“Yes, fine, but what--”

“I’m getting there. He was babbling about you, needing to find you and tell you something, and I figured it had to be important because he had legs and all. So I asked him how long he’d been climbing, and he only got out the word ‘seven’ before he collapsed, so I don’t know if it was seven days, or--”

“Seven hours,” Kurt says. “If it’s the same day as when you found me, I’d been going all night.” He turned to Blaine. “I kept count the whole time I was in the cave. I--”

“My story!” Cooper insisted. “I promise you, you don’t want to miss this, and you can fill in your parts later. Okay. So. He collapsed, and I picked him up and _easily_ flew him back here--I didn’t carry him like you did, generally easier to hold him under the shoulders and knees--”

“Cooper, get on with it--”

“--but I took him to my nest because...well, where the hell else would I go? You were still sleeping and I didn’t know what to do with him, I didn’t want you freaking out and waking up the whole village and having panics. So, I put him in my nest, and I wrapped him up in my blankets, and I went and got Jan from her nest, and she came over and checked him out.”

He paused, probably for dramatic effect, but Blaine just reached over and pinched his arm.

“Ow! Fine! Jan mixed him something to drink, smeared her special ointment stuff on some scratches Kurt had, they disappeared, and he slept for a couple hours and she told me to get him in the sun and bring him to her when he was feeling a little better so she could check him out.”

“Is that it?” Blaine asked. “You didn’t come get me til he woke up?”

“I had to make sure of a few things first,” Cooper said. “Now. You two lovebirds go flitter off to your nest, and I’m gonna request you keep it down, because Sam went scouting last night and got back late and he’s sleeping today, and I don’t want him coming to the meeting tonight grouchy because you woke him up with your long-denied passions or whatever--”

“Cooper, go away.”

“Fine, fine, I see I’m not needed,” Cooper concedes, and he stands up and balances precariously on the branch. “Make sure you come to the meeting tonight, I’m sure the Elders will want to meet the newest member of the Eyrie, and we can set up a mating ceremony, and I promise I will not insist on being the one to oversee it even though we all know that I’d be best at it--”

“Thanks, Coop. We’ll see you tonight.”

Cooper gives him a wave and flies off, and Blaine turns to Kurt and kisses his cheek.

“Do you want to stay out here, or go rest?”

“Is...does your nest have a window like Cooper’s?” Kurt asks. “I--I want to lie down, but the sun feels so warm--”

“I can figure something out,” Blaine says.

“We can.”

Blaine laughs and squeezes Kurt in his arms.

“ _We_ can.”

\--

The sun is shining through newly torn openings in the weave of his nest, a makeshift window that Blaine carved out quickly so Kurt could have some sun on him while they recline in bed. They’re wrapped up in each other, covered by a single thick blanket, facing each other and trading kisses slowly, enjoying the experience.

“How did this happen?” Blaine asks. “If you aren’t ready to tell me, I understand, but I just...if you can, I want to know how you’re here, how this isn’t a dream--”

“Shh,” Kurt soothes. “It’s not a dream. Will you let me tell you without interrupting? There are some...hard things, and I just want you to know that I need to get it out and we can talk after.”

Blaine nods, saying, “Whatever you need.” And Kurt smiles.

“After we parted, I was miserable,” he begins. “I was being forced to get ready for my union with Santana, and her mother had finished our brands, and we were set to be joined. And the night before it happened, Santana disappeared.”

Blaine almost interrupts, and Kurt pauses like he expects him to, but Blaine bites his lips and just nods. Kurt kisses him gratefully.

“I have no idea where she went,” Kurt continues. “All I know is that she told me that she couldn’t do it, and when I woke up in the morning my father told me that she’d vanished. Her possessions were gone, her mother said some food was missing, and...that’s it. No one knows where she went. It caused some anger in the tribe leaders, though. They thought she and I had planned something, and they...questioned me, several times. So as far as I know she got away, though I don’t know how far she’s gotten or where she is now.”

“I’m sorry,” Blaine whispers, unable to help it, and Kurt just sighs.

“Me too. Anyway, she was gone, so I had no one to join with. But I am of age, and so they started looking for other girls for me. I believe they sent to another tribe, one they wanted to make peace with. They’d send me over, get rid of me for themselves, and make it seem like they were making a gesture of goodwill, giving up one of their own. But it never happened.”

“Why not?”

“Isabelle,” Kurt answered. “I was...coping badly. I missed Santana, and I was afraid of what it would be like in a new tribe, without my friends and family. And I missed you so much, Blaine. I just wanted to go back to the cave and call out for you so badly, just see you again. But I wasn’t allowed out of the village, and none of my friends would risk going out themselves to leave you a message--”

“It’s okay now,” Blaine interrupts, soothing Kurt down from his increasing panic. “You’re here now, you’re with me.”

“I’m with you,” Kurt repeats. “And...and it’s because of Isabelle.

“She came to me a few nights ago,” he says, picking the story up again. “She sat me down with my father, and she told me that there was a way for me to get out. I didn’t care what she said--I wanted to take the chance, no matter the risk. And she told me...that I could visit a Witch.”

Kurt takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, holding Blaine close as he speaks on.

“Witches are...terrifying, Blaine. They’re known for stealing people’s souls. They trick people into deals they can’t fulfill just so they can take them. It’s rare that a Witch will make a fair deal. So it was the biggest risk possible--losing my soul for a chance to live my life away from all that pain. But I was ready to take it.

“Isabelle told the other Shamans and the tribe leaders that she’d caught me trying to escape. She was going to punish me, and wanted to do so outside the village, because she was going to...to make me docile. Take away some of my will. It’s dangerous magic, and it would have lowered my value in a union with another tribe, but I guess they were sick enough of the trouble I’d caused that they agreed to let Isabelle try it. So we swam out, with a guard, to a geyser, so she could use its power in the spell.

“But she didn’t cast it, obviously,” Kurt says grimly. “Instead, she...she shoved the guard into it. And those geysers, Blaine--they’re hot. They can burn someone to death within seconds. And...the guard...he burned. It was...it was awful--” Kurt wipes away tears, and sniffles, shaking his head. “I don’t know if I can ever forget it. But Isabelle said she’d tell everyone that I fought her spell and it went wrong because of it, and she’d say I went mad and killed the guard and swam away. She’d only tell my father and a few of my friends the truth, only people we could trust. And then she tugged my necklaces off of my throat, and said she’d return them to my father so he could keep them. She’d say they were lost in the fight with the guard, and hopefully no one would try to find me.

“So I left. She went back to the village, and I swam on as she told me. My people live above the deepest cracks in the ocean, but the Witches, well...they live down at the very bottom of the sea. So I had to go deep, and it was dark and--and I kept hearing noises, and screams, but--they weren’t _voices_. Blaine, it was the souls, all the souls around the Witch’s home. They were crying for help, and I’ve never heard anything like that. It was like they were in my _head,_ but they weren’t making noise, I just--I hope I never have to hear it again.

“The Witch welcomed me. It’s...awful. It stayed in the shadows, and all I saw that it was twisted. Not...natural. And it asked me why I had come, and I told it my story. I told it that I wanted to live on land.”

“You asked for legs.”

“I actually asked for wings,” Kurt laughed. “I thought it couldn’t hurt to just ask for what I really wanted. But the Witch refused, it said I couldn’t afford that. So I said I would pay whatever the price to walk on land, somehow. And it asked me for my most prized possession as payment.

“I’m certain the Witch believed that I was foolish to think I could fulfill the deal, because it was too eager, and it accepted such a light payment. Not from me--” Kurt plays with one of the braids on his temples, and Blaine notices his feather is missing. “--but to it, the feather...your feather...it was just a feather. It didn’t understand what it was, didn’t have a use for it, but it knew it was important to me. The sacrifice was the price. So I paid it, and the Witch told me the rules. I’d get legs for three days, and in those three days I’d need to share a kiss with my true love. It’s a traditional seal to a spell like that, something to anchor the one who changes to their new life. If they fail, they return, and the Witch takes their soul as compensation for the wasted energy.”

“So--we--Kurt, we’ve--”

“Yes,” Kurt says, and kisses Blaine again, simple and sweet. “The spell’s been fulfilled. Before you kissed me, there was still a...a tether, to the sea. I still felt its song. All of my people can, it’s what keeps us attuned to it. But the moment you kissed me, the song stopped.”

Blaine smiles, a little sadly. Kurt leaving his home, no matter how much pain he’d had there, must have been hard, and he’s lost his connection.

“I--I wish we’d done something more,” he admits. “I feel like it should have been a bigger moment, something special--”

“It was special,” Kurt admonishes. “It was the first time I kissed you again after losing you, Blaine. I don’t care if there’s fanfare or some kind of moment around it. Kissing you, being with you, is a gift, and I don’t need more than that.”

Blaine kisses Kurt again, and Kurt grins.

“See? Thank you.”

“What happened next?” Blaine asks. “How did you get to the surface?”

“It wasn’t fun,” Kurt says. “The Witch took the feather, and burned it in some kind of...water flame. Like the geyser, but it was different. It looked like flames up here. But the feather burned, and the Witch performed the spell, and--it’s scary, Blaine, there’s darkness and mist and the water goes so much colder than it already is. And then the Witch said that the moment I could see the light, the spell would take hold. So I swam, and I just stayed low until I reached the cliffs, and the moment I went up and could see the surface above, I was...changing. It was hard, and it hurt, and I couldn’t breathe. But I kept going. I managed to swim into the cave, and that’s where I took my first breath. I...I blacked out for a little while, though not long by the way the water had moved. And I crawled up, and there was your necklace--right on the top of the rock, safe. The water lines stopped just below it, so...the whole time, however long it was there, it was never touched by the water. And I put it on, and I felt like--I could _feel_ you, Blaine. So I went to the tunnel you always came down, and I started to climb, and I just kept counting the minutes. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, physically, but I kept crawling and scrambling up rocks and I was about to collapse when I saw your brother coming toward me. The first thing I remember after that is Cooper yelling something and then running to get you.”

“I love you,” Blaine whispers. “I love you so much, Kurt. You really want to be my mate?”

“Blaine, I was turned into a human for this,” Kurt says, deadpan. “I think--”

Blaine laughs.

“I’m sorry, I just--I can’t believe you’re here.”

“How can I convince you?”

“Be mine,” Blaine replies easily, and Kurt rolls his eyes and kisses him.

“Fine,” Kurt says. “But only if you feed me--I haven’t eaten anything in _days_ , and I’m curious what you eat up here.”

Blaine smiles mischievously.

“I could get you some fish.”

The smack Kurt gives him is worth it, because Kurt laughs with him.

\--

When Blaine goes out to get them something to eat, he tells Brittany that he won’t be attending the meeting that night. There are far more important things, and he doesn’t need his people to accept his mating just yet--he wants to enjoy it for himself for now. So he lets her take the message, and he brings Kurt back some venison stew, and he teaches Kurt about the things he’s eating as he devours it.

“Is all your food here so delicious and warm?” Kurt asks, and Blaine laughs.

“Not if Cooper cooks it,” he jokes. Kurt shakes his head and sighs.

“Nevermind. I’ll ask someone else.”

“Some of it is wonderful,” Blaine says. “But not all food is warm. Some things we eat cold. I’ll teach you all about it. When you’re feeling better, we’ll go to the market, and we can sample everything. Or we can wait til we get south when the flock flies--if you’re up for going, that is. I can buy a harness to keep you safely with me while I fly, if you want, or we can follow the flock from the ground.”

“I like being in the air,” Kurt says. “And I like being close to you. If you won’t be too tired by it, I’d like to be tied against you.”

The implication of the words, of them pressed so tightly together for long periods of time, washes over Blaine, and he sets the bowls aside from their finished meal. He lays Kurt down from his sitting position on the bed and lays next to him, leaning over him to kiss him.

“I like kissing you,” Kurt says. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt.”

“There are a lot of things I can’t wait to show you,” Blaine replies. “Dancing, and sleeping by a fire, and making love--”

“I--” Kurt blushes deeply, and Blaine stares at the pretty pink on Kurt’s cheeks. “I’m...curious. About that. What--I--all I know is what my people would do, for breeding, but--your people are so different--”

“Our people, now,” Blaine reminds. “I can teach you. I don’t...have experience myself, but...I can tell you what I know.”

Kurt bites his lip, and shifts uncomfortably in Blaine’s arms.

“I just feel--so much, Blaine,” he admits. “This body, it’s...it’s different, and I--”

“Sssh, it’s okay, I’ll help you with whatever I can,” Blaine says.

“I want you to touch me,” Kurt blurts, and he rolls his eyes as though exasperated with himself. “Can you just...can you do that? And--and you can teach me what I’m feeling? It’s--it’s so much--”

“Here,” Blaine says, pushing the blankets back and kneeling up. “I can touch you, Kurt, of course. I want to, so badly.”

Kurt props himself up on his elbows, and nods tremulously, his body trembling faintly. Blaine holds his hand for a moment, and then shifts down, laying his hands on Kurt’s ankles. The connection with Kurt is stronger than ever, and being able to touch him like this, where before the need for Kurt to keep returning to the salt and water had kept them at a distance, is exhilarating. And Kurt, by his own awkward, half-spoken admission, is experiencing confusing feelings in his body. Blaine just wants to make him feel the best he can, loved and close and cared for and perfect.

“How does this feel?” he asks, and Kurt smiles as Blaine rubs his thumbs along the smooth skin. “Good?” Kurt laughs. “I’m not sure--”

“Just wait,” Blaine says. “I’ll touch all of you. Just...let’s see what feels good?”

When Kurt agrees, Blaine lifts his left leg up and kisses his shin, massaging his calf muscle firmly in his hands. Kurt sighs happily, and Blaine does it to the other as well before he lowers himself down.

“Stop me anytime you don’t like what I’m doing,” Blaine says, and he moves his mouth to one of Kurt’s thighs, mouthing up the inside of it.

Kurt takes a shaky breath, and then lets it out in a faint exclamation of surprise. Blaine continues kissing the sensitive skin, palms skating up and down along the outsides as he moves his mouth along the insides, rising higher and feeling the skin go softer and softer as he rises, and Kurt’s skin gets warmer and his movements get shorter and sharper. Finally, Blaine kisses a soft bit of flesh just before his thigh ends, suckling a mark into it, his cheek brushing Kurt’s groin beneath his wrap.

“Blaine, Blaine, I--” Kurt reaches down and puts his hands in Blaine’s hair. “I--can’t--this feels so good, I just don’t--”

“It’s okay,” Blaine reassures. “Kurt, what you’re feeling is supposed to happen. And I want to make you feel even better. So...can I remove this? Do you trust me?”

He pulls at the edge of the wrap, and Kurt takes several steadying breaths before he nods frantically. Blaine giggles at his overwhelmed mate-- _mate_ \--before he reaches for the sloppy tie on the side and unwraps it from around Kurt, unwinding it from around his hips and between his legs and revealing his flushed, hard cock, straining up toward his stomach, the tip glistening. Blaine licks his lips, and kisses it once, right where it drips so temptingly onto Kurt’s belly. Kurt lets out a high sound and writhes under him, but Blaine leaves it for now.

“No. More,” Kurt protests, and Blaine grins. “Blaine, please, that felt so good--”

“I will,” Blaine promises. “But there’s so much more of you.”

He kisses over Kurt’s stomach and chest, hands exploring his sides and arms and brushing over his collarbones and cupping his jaw as he rises, laying his body right along Kurt’s as he kisses him, deeply, dirtier now, more tongue and harder presses and nipping little bites when they pull away. Blaine reaches down and removes the simple breeches he’d been wearing, pushing them off without looking or trying to be graceful while Kurt’s mouth is on his.

Being pressed against Kurt, chest to ankles, is a luxury Blaine had been willing to sacrifice. He’d been willing to simply keep to kissing Kurt for the rest of his life. But now that he’s feeling it--now that Kurt’s heart is beating against his chest, now that their legs are tangling and pressing together, now that their arms are wrapped around each other and pulling closer as their hips align, Blaine starts to realize what he would’ve given up. The physical intimacy is just a vessel--there’s only so much connection that abstract emotion can foster. The physical touch, this close, this bare, breaks his heart open and expands it, filling it with the sight of Kurt’s eyes fluttering, his lips parting to draw in breath, his throat bobbing as he swallows, his chest rising and falling erratically.

He’d been willing to give that up. If he had to, he still would, though he’ll thank every god that’s ever been worshipped if he can just continue to hold Kurt like this forever and never have to move again.

“Blaine, please,” Kurt begs, fingers scratching lightly through the feathers on his back, sending thrills through his nerves as he kisses at Kurt’s throat. “Please, I need--something, more, I don’t know--”

“Let me,” Blaine whispers, and Kurt replies a quick gasped, _anything,_ before Blaine lowers himself down.

He takes Kurt into his mouth gently, sucking him, exploring him, discovering what they both like and can take. Kurt makes beautiful noises, moaning and crying out and pleading with Blaine to keep showing him more, keep making him feel this way.

“Never--never knew,” Kurt groans brokenly. “Never knew I could feel like this.”

And he can’t stay away from Kurt for another second, he rises up, folding them into each other’s arms, hitching Kurt’s legs around his hips as he thrusts them together, slick from his mouth, pressing hard and fast and kissing and rocking and clinging tight. Kurt comes with a shuddering gasp, tugging Blaine’s hair and gripping his waist tight as Blaine sucks marks into his neck through it, finally coming himself with a shudder and a cry of Kurt’s name into his warm-beating pulse, losing himself in the length of Kurt’s legs wrapped around him, holding him close.

“It’s--Blaine, that’s...that’s how it’s supposed to be?” Kurt asks, panting and wriggling under Blaine’s weight as they come down, arching his back through aftershocks, still hard against Blaine’s stomach. Blaine can tell from the distant look in his eyes that he’s babbling a little bit, but Blaine just smiles at him fondly, hoping he’ll never get used to feeling these things, that he’ll always feel this wonder at what their bodies can give them together. “I honestly didn’t...didn’t even know. It’s so _warm_ , Blaine.”

Twice more they make love that night, tumbling around on the bed, cuddling in between and feeding each other morsels of food that Blaine keeps sneaking out to get from the communal stores. Twice more they wrap around each other, figuring out more ways to make the other lose control, fall into the perfect bliss of feeling the other touch and kiss them, their mate touch and kiss and hold and stroke and caress and squeeze and treasure.

“I want to know more,” Kurt says, before they drift to sleep. “Everything you’ve shown me in just one day...it’s been more than I could ever have imagined. What else could there possibly be?”

Blaine smiles, and starts planning.

“Everything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For fanart and accompanying notes and drawings, visit my Tumblr and check out the tag "fic: one spectacle grander". Thank you for reading!


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